


Happy New Year

by SowenElf



Category: Alias (TV)
Genre: Drama & Romance, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:40:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 35
Words: 199,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25562989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SowenElf/pseuds/SowenElf
Summary: When a mission goes awry, Sydney and Vaughn find themselves in a precarious position. How bad could the consequences be? This takes place between The Getaway and Phase One (goes AU but stays in the Alias universe). S/V
Relationships: Sydney Bristow/Michael Vaughn
Comments: 65
Kudos: 15





	1. Protocol Issue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [](https://www.flickr.com/photos/190971129@N06/50576742626/in/dateposted/)

**Happy New Year**

Rating: M - sex, violence, language.

Timeline: S2 - because I'm stuck in the past. After The Getaway but before Phase One.

Premise: Precarious is a constant state between the asset and the handler, but what happens when everything is put on the line and true loyalty is tested?

**…**

With each step through the crunching snow, their feet painfully numb, Sydney and Vaughn finally spotted the small safe house cabin on the next hilltop.

"Great, now all we need to do is hike over to it," she grunted in a strained voice as she squeezed closer to her handler for warmth. The cold of the Ural Mountains Russian winter was beginning to seep through her layers, though she was thankful that the three-foot deep drifts of snow they'd been hiking through for the last two hours had efficiently numbed the throbbing of her leg.

"It's bleeding again," Michael commented, breathing through the mask covering his face as he held tight to her waist to try and keep as much weight off of her injured thigh as possible. She followed his gaze seeing several drops of red dying the snow and marking the path behind them. Trudging through the knee-deep powder hadn't exactly awarded them time or energy to cover their tracks, so she wasn’t sure if it really mattered that she was leaving a bloody trail of breadcrumbs.

"You mean still," she grumbled, keeping a firm hold around his neck, her arm losing circulation due to his height but she didn't care.

"C'mon, it's not too much farther, lemme carry you. Please?" he begged, seeing her agitated glare through the ridiculously wide ski goggles. Despite the tough wall she'd constructed at the forefront of her gaze, he'd learned to look deeper. The first emotion she showed outside of the warehouse was usually a decoy, and he was determined to read her like the open book she was. Well…to him anyway. 

He saw the reflections of pain and anger at the turn of the mission despite the success, but also warmth that he hoped was caused by his companionship. Maybe it had stemmed from the fact that she didn't have her trusting SD-6 partner here and thus had no need to lie. As time wore on, he knew the lies were beginning to weigh her down – especially for one so keen on finding the truth in everything they did.

"I'm fine. It's not too far ahead; then I'll play doctor with you."

Though he couldn't see her dimples or her smile behind the balaclava, he knew by the sound of her voice that both were present.

He nodded reluctantly and accepted more of her weight as they pushed through the snow. "Fine, but if it gets to be too much, let me know. I won't tell a soul that I carried you, Miss Super Spy."

She laughed, the small puff of steam coming from behind the thick cotton. An hour later, after many trips, slips, and stumbles, they made it to the entryway of the cabin. He fumbled around while searching for the key, his large gloved hands complicating things. Lifting his mask up over his chin and lips, he pulled off the glove with his teeth. The biting air made his already tingling fingers ache, but he managed to find the key and open the door all without dropping his agent.

"Okay, Syd, here we are. Home sweet home until I can get us an extraction," he grunted as he half-dragged her inside, Sydney letting go of his neck and flopping down onto an old dusty sofa.

She reached up, grabbing the bottom of the mask and pulled it up over her head and tossed it toward the opposite end of the couch. Her gloves went next, though her numb and shaking fingers were having difficulties undoing the buttons of her jacket.

"Here, let me help."

Crouching down, mindful of her bandaged leg, he deftly got her jacket open and slid it off, carrying it over to the kitchen. She shivered on the couch and peered around the room. For a run down safe house, this place wasn't too bad. Maintenance had been marginally kept up, though everything was covered in a layer of fine dust.

He removed the bandage, blood oozing from the wound through the heavy pants she wore. "Okay, gimme your hand, we need to put some pressure here. I'm going to need to sew it up and that’ll probably work better if you're on the bed." Rising quickly, he grabbed the first-aid kit from the marked case in the corner.

He paused, slightly at a loss of what to say or do. The only way he was going to be able to fix her leg up would be for her to remover her pants – and this was quickly going to an area where he'd sternly forbidden himself to tread. Stripping her down in his _mind_ was a no-no, yet here he was about to ask the woman he was infatuated with to take off her trousers.

"Vaughn? You okay?" she asked, her teeth clenched as she forced her hands to press over the aching knife wound on her leg. She couldn't unsee the rage on his face when the guard had slammed the five-inch blade into her upper thigh. It made her feel warm inside, though she was desperately trying not to allow the feelings back in.

 _'You remember last time? When you two had to bolt from the restaurant, lie to both SD-6 and the CIA just to save your asses?'_ her mind scolded, and she lowered her gaze from his.

"Umm…If I'm gonna do this, I need – uh – need you to take off your…pants," he stuttered, Sydney's eyes widening as a blush crept up from her neck.

"Do you think that's a good idea?" she asked quietly, her question not entirely referring to her injury.

He thought for a moment before replying. His immediate answer a swift _'yes,'_ but that was his heart talking. His mind was screaming, _'this is such a bad idea,'_ and he wasn't entirely sure to which part of his body he should be listening.

At the thought of working over Sydney's nearly nude figure, another body part was begging to give input, and Vaughn shifted on the floor to avoid further suspicion from the worried young woman in front of him.

"Look, we need to take care of this right now. We can worry about the awkwardness later."

Lifting her into his arms, he found the single bedroom the cabin sported. The twin bed sat in the middle of the floor, the blankets appearing fresh compared to the rest of the furniture in the safe house.

"You just…just get ready, and I'll go get stuff together. Hopefully, we'll have something to dull the pain," he abruptly turned and walked from the room. "Call me when you're good, okay?"

She could hear him rummaging around in the living room and went about trying to get the pants off without further injuring herself. After a solid five minutes of struggling, she heard his footsteps approaching.

"Syd? Can I come in?" His voice was tentative, and despite all of her hard work, the pants were merely sitting lower on her hips.

"Umm, I can't really do it," she admitted, a hint of shyness in her voice.

"What do you mean you can't do it? Can't do what?" he asked, merely a voice from the hallway since she couldn't see him.

"I can't get the damned pants off!" she growled, crossing her arms over her chest and glaring at the far wall.

"Okay, I'm comin' in alright?"

Walking into the room, he fought the urge to laugh as the defiant woman sat giving him the eyes of death.

"We're in this together, let’s just power through," he spoke reassuringly, getting all the supplies set out on the edge of the bed before sitting down next to her legs. He reached up, pushing aside any and all embarrassment as he continually reminded himself that, _'Yes, this is Sydney - the same Sydney you've wanted to boink all year, but this Sydney is_ **_hurt_ ** _. This is a hurt Sydney. She needs your_ **_help_ ** _, not your_ **_testosterone_ ** _.'_

Ending his train of thought there, he managed to tug down the first layer of pants, seeing her jeans below. He gently removed her boots and placed them at the end of the bed.

He looked up, a big mistake, as he saw the pain, confusion, and embarrassment shining in her large Bambi-like brown eyes. "You okay?"

She nodded, not trusting her throat to speak as his hands moved to her waist, undoing the belt…then the button…then the zipper. Her body was practically humming, contrary to what she was telling herself. ' _Yes, this is Vaughn, - the same Vaughn you've wanted to boink you all year, but this Vaughn wants to_ **_help_ ** _. This is a helping Vaughn. He needs your_ **_cooperation_ ** _, not your_ **_drool_ ** _.'_

She tried to angle her hips up, even though her thigh felt like it was on fire, failing when it caused Vaughn's thumb to brush against her sensitive cotton-covered mound.

She jumped…

He jumped…

His eyes met hers, and she instantly looked down at her lap, squeezing out a small breath of air as he fought his trembling fingers and pulled her pants off the rest of the way. The tattered and cut strands had adhered to a few parts of her injury, the removal of the garment tearing the clotted blood away and causing fresh to flow.

She winced, Vaughn apologizing as the red liquid oozed over the side of her creamy white thigh and onto the towel he'd set underneath her leg.

"Damn, Syd, this looks pretty bad," he gnawed his lower lip, setting a cold washcloth against the wound and pressing down.

"Ow!" she cried out, smacking at his arm.

"What?! Pressure!" he growled, seeing her frown.

He was now glad that Weiss hadn't been able to come with them, for this situation would be highly comical to the other agent. Sydney and Vaughn, sitting on a bed together in the middle of nowhere – Sydney already half-naked – and Vaughn's hands pressing into her thighs.

His mind circled back around to the ‘half-naked’ part, and despite trying desperately to keep his eyes on the bedspread, her flesh was too tempting. It was enough to rouse his libido and he prayed that with all the heavy layers she wouldn't notice.

"I'm gonna have to sew it, Syd, I’m sorry."

"Fine…just – just do it," she ordered, steeling herself to assist. "What do you need me to do?"

Vaughn jumped off the bed, yanking both his jacket and sweater off in one pull. He had to tear his eyes away from the young woman leaning against the headboard, the sexy yet subdued black underwear showing her slim hips while keeping everything else hidden from his gaze.

Not that he hadn't attempted a look. Or two. Or ten.

"Okay, we'll just go one step at a time. You keep the pressure while I grab the alcohol."

"You found alcohol?"

"Rum in the kitchen. Should be good enough."

"As long as there’s enough for drinking afterward because I’m fairly sure we’re gonna need to get drunk after all this.” He wasn’t prepared for the grin to flit across her lips. If she was going to take this in stride, he could as well.

They sobered up as he pushed the dental floss through the eye of the needle.

To her credit, she was remarkably calm through the suturing process, Vaughn wincing each time she let out a little groan or grunt of pain. By the time he was finished, he'd moved his body up over her legs, practically straddling her knees to manage the angle of the wound.

He pulled his head back from his hunched over position feeling for the first time the grip of Sydney's hand at the back of his neck. Surveying his stitching he determining that it should hold up until they could get to a medical facility, or at least somewhere with a doctor, and without thinking he pressed his lips above the laceration. Her fingers tightened against the nape of his neck, Michael taking a moment to look up at her startled face.

A blush crept up his cheeks and he pulled back, grabbing the discarded washcloth and dabbing at the excess blood that covered her thigh. Once the creamy skin was clean he pulled the downy quilt up to her stomach after getting off of the bed. _‘What I can’t see can’t tempt me, right?’_

"You should probably contact my father," she suggested, trying to overcome the awkward intimacy that had popped up between them.

If Jack Bristow wasn't a cold shower on a hard cock, he wasn't sure what was.

He nodded, leaving the room and putting as much distance between him and his agent as he could. He grabbed the backpack pulled out the CIA-issue brick of a phone, dialing Jack's secure cell.

"Agent Vaughn, I trust that your lack of punctuality isn't going to continue," the gruff voice growled over the earpiece, Vaughn rolling his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger before answering.

"We had some complications. There was more security than we thought and Sydney was injured. We missed our time table, but got the intel."

"Good. Is Sydney all right?"

 _'I'm fine, too, Jack, thanks for asking.'_ He smirked at his internal thought, knowing that the senior Bristow wouldn't hesitate to scold him if he'd actually said it aloud. "She was stabbed, but I stitched it up and that stopped the bleeding. That's why it took us so long to get to the safe house. Any chance for an extraction tonight?" he asked, lifting his wrist and glancing down at his watch.

"No. With the snowstorm blowing in we can’t get a chopper to your location. Looks like you're stuck there for at least a couple of days. Is there food?"

"Yeah, about a million cans of condensed soup. We'll live," he sighed, flipping open a few of the cabinets and seeing the white and red letters of Campbell's Tomato Soup staring back at him.

"I don’t need to remind you about agent handler protocol again, do I, Mister Vaughn?" And with that, he was gone. Michael hit the end button and tossed the gigantic phone over to the couch brushing the interaction off.

"Hey, Syd?"

"Yeah?"

"You hungry?" He grabbed two cans from the cabinet in the kitchen bringing them down the hallway while looking at the labels. "We've got Campbell's Tomato and Kroger Tomato. Any prefer-" he stopped mid-sentence seeing her wide eyes looking up at him as he stood dead-stopped the doorway. She was half-dressed, obviously having raided the one bag they'd managed to salvage from the transport before retreating into the woods. His sweatpants were rolled up low on her hips and she was in the process of buttoning one of his blue oxfords over her bare skin.

He could plainly see the valley between her breasts, her alabaster skin shining despite the dim light of the room.

"Umm…sorry, I – I didn't mean to barge in," he paused, "I didn't know you were…putting on my – clothes," he finished, feeling the erection he'd managed to finally get rid of spring back to life.

"Well…in the rush we grabbed your stuff and not mine, so I figure I should be clothed rather than naked," she admitted, her delicate fingers finishing the trail of buttons until he wasn't able to see any more of her edible skin other than the 'V' made by his shirt.

_'O, yeah. Being naked would be a bad thing – not.'_

"Well, I brought extra clothes anyway, I usually do." He blushed at his statement, seeing her smile.

"Like a good little Boy Scout. What did you say about food?" Limping toward the door, she shook off his attempts to help her, and he reminded himself that this was Sydney Bristow Wonder Woman, and was thus beyond the need for aide from a mere mortal man.

Managing without incident to reach the couch, she did accept his hand so she wouldn't have to bend her leg in order to sit. Stretching out along the length of the sofa, she turned her attention to him.

"We've basically got tomato soup. Maybe chicken noodles if I rummage deep enough. You okay with that?"

"Fine with me," she muttered, grabbing an old afghan off the back of the couch and bunching it underneath her head as a makeshift pillow. "You know what would be great? A toasty, roaring fire," she suggested, closing her eyes and cuddling farther into his soft shirt.

It smelled like him; like the aftershave and cologne he wore. She didn't know what kind it was, and she really didn't care, but the scent had become uniquely Vaughn. On occasion, someone would walk past her in a crowded café with the scent and though she knew that even if it was Michael Vaughn that she shouldn't chance a glance or conversation, she looked anyway.

Of course, it never was him, but hell, she could hope, couldn't she?

The next thing she knew she woke to his gentle shake, opening her eyes to see Vaughn squatting beside the couch with the glow of the fire behind him.

"I didn't really want to wake you up, but the soup's ready."

"I didn't mean to fall asleep," she mumbled with a yawn, stretching her arms up over her head, the bottom of the shirt riding up and exposing a bit of her stomach to his hungry gaze. She attempted to push herself up, but his hand and smile stopped her.

Sliding the steaming mug of red soup into her chilled fingers, she thanked him as he sat on the floor with his back to the fire drinking from another.

Dinner was quiet, each sneaking glances and longing stares, quickly looking back into their near-empty cups when they got caught.

"Umm…good dinner," she smiled, setting her finished cup on her bent knee, the injured leg stretched out in front of her on the cushions with two large pillows serving as a prop.

"I'll wash the dishes then help you to bed, you've gotta be dead tired. Too bad there weren't any Advil in the first aid kit, huh?"

Collecting the dinnerware he jumped up, dress pants and cotton t-shirt a bit wrinkled from their jaunt in the tumbled bag.

"Here, I can help." Standing determinedly, she was surprised when there wasn't an overwhelming bolt of fire shooting from her thigh. "It doesn't hurt too bad, more like an ache, really."

"Syd, c'mon. You sit, I'll do the dishes."

"Don't go all macho guy on me, Vaughn. Aren't the dishes the woman's job?"

"You're not going to do anything I say anyway, are you?"

"Probably not," she laughed, leaning heavily on the counter as he shook his head, rinsing out the soupy remains as she grabbed an old towel to dry them.

Their hands would brush, accidentally at first, until it happened with each item they passed. Too soon, they ran out of things to wash as she took her weight off of her injured leg by hopping onto the counter with a small grunt.

"Now you can get on your toes and put them away," she smiled, seeing him grab the silverware, tossing them into the drawer to her left. The cups went directly above her, and she ducked down as he reached over her head to slide them back. Finishing and finding himself between her open legs, her hand mysteriously pressing against his chest as green eyes met brown.

He blushed…

She blushed…

They looked away and Vaughn quickly announced it was time for bed. Helping her down from the countertop with stiff hands and awkward silence, they both trekked to the bedroom.

"You take the bed, and I'll grab some stuff to sleep on the couch."

"Okay," she conceded, not entirely in the right mind to argue.

What could she say? The 'we're both adults' conversation was out because she didn't know how long she'd be able to stay on her own side of the bed.

No, this was the right decision. Have him sleep in another part of the house that way she wouldn't even get the chance to fall into temptation. Because let's face it, it was way too tempting.

He was way too tempting.

Vaughn rummaged through the bag pulling out two toothbrushes and a half-used tube of toothpaste.

"I have an extra toothbrush if you want it," he suggested, digging in the bottom and locating the mini carry-on item, handing it out to her.

"Thanks. Yeah, I really did just lose all my stuff, didn't I?"

Vaughn's hand hovered at the small of her back as she hobbled through the doorway and flipped on the light, the two moving into the bathroom unsure of how long the hot water would last. The cramped conditions made it awkward, but they both managed to finish their teeth as Sydney balanced on one leg while leaning against his arm. She wet a washcloth with lukewarm water prepared to remove the makeup and general gunk from her face, Vaughn maneuvering behind her to reach for one of his own.

His stomach bumped into her causing a rush of pain to shoot through her as the wound pressed up against the edge of the sink. She gasped, fingers clutching the porcelain as his hands grabbed her waist and pulled her against him when her legs went limp.

"I'm sorry, Syd, I thought I'd have enough room. You okay?" He circled his hand around flat against her taut stomach as the other set to her hip.

"Yeah…you just – I pushed it against the sink. I'm okay." Despite her explanation, she didn't exactly move out of his arms.

"I'm sorry," he muttered, his thumb rubbing the soft exposed skin where the oversized sweatpants dipped low and the twisted oxford had inched up.

"Are we gonna dance around this for the next two days?" her voice was exasperated, and he met her eyes in the mirror.

She felt the breath catch in her throat at the darkened emerald stare that sent a bolt of excitement to her center, Michael equally taken by the purple haze overtaking the light brown to which he was accustomed. "Dance around what?"

Sydney didn't answer, raising her eyebrows as she breathed heavy behind pouted lips. She shrugged a bit as the button-up slipped off her right shoulder, his eyes drawn like magnets.

"I...need you to tell me." It was a soft order, and he was unable to stop himself from leaning down and pressing a kiss to the newly revealed skin.

"This...protocol issue…" she wanted so badly to close her eyes at the sensation, but she couldn’t pull her gaze from the reflection of Vaughn holding her.

"Issue?" he asked innocently, his voice light as his nose rubbed the spot just below her ear.

"Vaughn," she moaned, her head tipping back to rest on his shoulder.

Michael said nothing, ghosting his lips against the junction of her neck and shoulder breathing in the soft scent of the perfume she'd dabbed on that morning.

"You're so beautiful," he whispered.

"This...isn't even something we are allowed to talk about, let alone do." Forcing her willpower to push herself forward to hobble out of his arms, she realized she really didn’t have anywhere to go. The sink was now pressing against her backside, the heels of both hands pushing against the porcelain to hold herself up and keep as much weight off of her injured and throbbing leg as possible. She felt his hands slip from her waist and fall to his sides.

Sydney tried not to see the disappointed understanding in his green eyes, knowing hers looked the same in a different shade, and she focused on the button just over his heart while trying to catch her breath.

The bubble of excitement in her stomach was pushing against her lungs as she ran through the scenarios. 

_‘First: SD-6 could find out and have us both killed. Second: my dad could find out and kill Vaughn. Third: maybe we’ll bring down the Alliance within a couple of more years and then none of this secrecy crap will be necessary.'_

_'Fourth: I may never get this chance again.’_

_‘Damnit, brain, whose side are you on?’_

Whatever part of her mind had made her think that phrase was right. It definitely wasn’t the Bristow side of her brain, that’s for sure. That part was booming klaxons and red flashing lights. 

_'_ ** _We_ ** _may never get this chance again.’_

The sirens got quieter. 

_‘Why are you fighting this? We_ **_want_ ** _this. Desperately. Let him ravage us senseless for two days, SD-6 and CIA be damned!’_

She couldn’t look at the button any longer. She’d memorized every detail of the opaque, four-holed piece of white and silver swirled plastic, and found she wished it was instead the tanned skin of his chest. Looking away she noticed him eyeing the same thing, though the button on which he focused held the material closed over her rapidly rising and falling chest. Their eyes met, each gaze hungry. He was having the same internal warring dialogue, she could see it on his face. 

"Screw it," she growled. Her hands grabbed the front of his oxford, the silvery button digging into her palm as she pulled him down and slammed his lips over hers in a breathless kiss. He needed no further encouragement, a groan rumbling in his chest as his hands grabbed her waist. Instead of risking her injury he stepped into her body letting her press herself against him as much as she desired.

Swallowing her moan his tongue slid into her mouth quickly, the taste of her making him shiver, and her hands wrapped around his shoulders. Her mouth dueled his, a loud smack reverberating off of the bathroom walls as they broke apart gasping for air.

Their foreheads were smashed together and their breath intermingled as he opened his eyes, looking down at his agent.

He was her handler.

"We can't do this," he whispered as his nose brushed against hers.

"Who’s gonna know but us?" her voice was deliciously sultry.

"Probably your dad, and at the very least, he’s gonna shoot me in the face. It'd be better if we just...if this doesn't go any further." His mind was making his lips speak, but his hands still held her flush against the length of his body.

"After that kiss I get nothing?" she asked, pulling back to crane her head. "Because that's not fair."

"Sydney, we can't. I...I can't. I'm sorry, but we're risking it as it is. I'm not gonna be able to sit across from you without remembering what it was like to kiss you," his voice was hoarse, and she could see the conflict in his eyes as he cupped her cheek brushing his thumb over her lower lip.

"Michael…please?" she begged, seeing his eyebrows rise at the use of his first name. "Just kiss me – one more time."

With her eyes watery and Bambi-like, he couldn't resist. Heaving a sigh, he lowered his head until his lips brushed against her soft full mouth, his hands lightly holding her in place with one slipping around to her back as the other held her cheek.

His tongue begged entrance, gentle and waiting for permission. She granted it promptly, meeting it with her own as she traced her hands over the contours of his chest before slipping up around his neck, pulling him closer.

Vaughn groaned from deep in his throat and the two began to lose track of time. Their mouths became more ardent, searching and plundering each other's depths. It quickly became harder and harder to stop, and he found that he was grinding his rapidly growing erection against her taut stomach.

He yanked his head away from hers, a string of saliva stretching and breaking between their lips as he panted. Closing his eyes as tight as he could, he wasn't able to quash the lust that was rapidly getting out of control.

"If we don't stop now…I don't think I'll be able to." With a voice deep and gravelly, she leaned into him as her lips fastened to his racing pulse point.

"Why should we stop?"

"Because it's…not a good idea?" He hadn't meant for his voice to rise turning his defensive statement into a question, but her hot mouth against his skin was becoming his undoing.

A gust of breath fanned his burning throat as she laughed, trailing down to where the collar of his shirt was hanging slightly open. "Was that a question? Because you know my answer – and I believe I know yours." Biting into his neck, she pushed her hips into his, a thrill of electricity zooming through her veins at the rumble from deep in his chest.

Unfortunately, two years of desire and passion concerning the woman in front of him was making it hard for him to concentrate. He needed to separate himself – and fast.

"Sydney…this is a very bad idea. If we do this…what will happen after?" He meant it to be a serious question, but the purple hue to her irises made him doubt his own words.

"Well…depending how easily you can recoup, I was thinking that we'd go for a second round."

He sighed decidedly, "If your dad's gonna kill me, I might as well give him one hell of a good reason."

Yanking his head back down, she thrust her tongue into his mouth as he fervently responded. Pulling away to lift her into his arms, mindful of her injured leg, he carried her into the bedroom. Once on the bed, he leaned over her warmth, the cold air of the cabin welcome for once.

"Now…we have to be careful of your leg. Meaning…I can't be on top. You probably shouldn't bend it repeatedly or the stitches will pop so that means you can't be on top." He paused long enough to press a wet kiss to her shoulder where it was sticking out from his blue shirt.

"So how do we solve this problem?" she asked quietly, reach back and running her hand up and down his thigh. Vaughn involuntarily thrust his hips against her, her injured leg moving up to rest on top of his, giving him an idea.

"Okay; that'll work." He grinned as he pulled away from her long enough to remove his shirt. Jumping off the bed, he hurriedly stepped out of his pants, stumbling momentarily when his foot got stuck in the leg. Sydney laughed at his rushed behavior, her own trembling fingers moving from button to button until the shirt she was wearing was free to be opened, though she kept herself covered.

He stopped once his trousers and socks were on, leaving his tented boxers over his hips as he turned to look at her from the end of the bed.

 _'My **god** he’s **hot**!' _ her mind screamed as she took in the sight of his built chest, muscled arms, and hockey-toned legs.

She wasn't at all surprised that he was wearing a conservative set of boxers, despite the fact that she'd pegged him as a boxer-briefs type of guy.

 _'Guess I was wrong,'_ she thought – thought that wasn't entirely a bad thing.

"You just gonna stand there all night? Because that's not really how I'm used to doing this." Flashing her dimples, Michael returning the gesture, he climbed up from the foot of the bed until he was straddling her legs.

"Let's get these pants off," was all he said until his fingers looped the waist, unrolling it and stretching it over the gauzed wound on her upper thigh. She lifted her hips minutely, letting him slip them to her knees; the movement made the unbuttoned shirt open over her taut stomach, his eyes jumping to her belly button.

The only thing hidden from his gaze was her chest, and he quickly removed the sweatpants before tossing them to the floor. Running his hands up her creamy calves then over her runner's thighs, he reached her hips and played with the hem of her panties.

Leaning down, he pressed a small kiss above her wound as her hands reached down into his hair. He moved north, slipping his tongue into her belly button she released a breathy moan above him. He rained kisses to her stomach and ribs, moving higher and higher until his mouth was nestled between her covered breasts.

He uncovered the right side with his nose, moving his lips up to the nipple before sucking it into his mouth. She arched off the bed, pain from her thigh ignored as he did the same to the left breast. Vaughn helped her shrug out of the shirt before rolling her onto her uninjured side and slipping behind her. He managed to pull his boxers off with one hand, his hardness snapping out against the small of her back.

Sydney couldn't stop a shudder as it raced down her spine. Stretching out his arm and sliding it under her head, she used his shoulder as a pillow. His mouth suctioned to her neck as he slid a finger into her opening from behind to test her readiness.

"Vaughn…I've been ready for months," she growled, reaching behind them to cup the back of his neck.

He lifted her injured leg gently, positioning her thigh over his legs as the tip of his erection aligned itself with her core. She pushed back as he thrust forward, gasping and letting his head fall against her neck as a rush of air squeezed from his lungs.

They stayed still for a few moments, savoring the feeling of their first – and hopefully not last – time together.

He composed himself, pulling back with his hips very slowly. Sydney groaned from her chest as her head fell back to land with a soft thud on his shoulder, his cheek pressed against hers. Her hand cupped his face, Michael pressing a kiss to the pad of her thumb in a moment of soft intimacy.

On his return, he thrust in completely until the crown bumped up and off of her closed cervix. No one had really done that before, and she groaned for a moment at the unique feeling of having him so deeply embedded. The thought quickly changed as he pulled out, the arm underneath her head moving lengthwise across her body as his ring finger descended over her clit.

"God, Vaughn," she moaned and bucked up against his hand before pushing back against his thrusting erection. She quickly became accustomed to the bulbous head of his arousal slamming repeatedly past her g-spot and against her inner opening, and it began a burning in her abdomen. That, plus his finger constantly worrying her swollen bundle of nerves, her orgasm began to build quickly.

She found herself tumbling off the cliff as every muscle in her body tensed as a ragged moan left her parted lips, Vaughns arm under her wrapped up and across her chest holding her tight as she came down, his mouth showering her neck with nips and licks. 

“Well,” she gasped, “that was two years worth of...pent up sexual tension.” He chuckled against her sweaty neck, breath cooling the skin as he resumed his thrusts, alternating from slow to fast, though he was also feeling the roil of years worth of held back desire building pressure behind the dam in his lower stomach.

For the moment, however, he was on cloud nine. Every push and pull within Sydney's warm channel felt like sliding into a velvet-lined vice. It was obvious that she hadn't had sex for a while, a brief image of her with Noah assailed his thoughts and made him falter in his thrusts, but it didn't stay long. Her not having sex wasn't a bad thing in his mind, and he began to take note of every little mewl that erupted from her pouted lips.

Removing his hand from her center, she let out a small defeated groan as he set it to her cheek tilting her face up. Slanting his mouth over hers, he sucked the air straight from her lungs as she closed her eyes and let her passion completely overtake her body.

They pulled apart for a breath before rejoining as his hand moved down from her cheek to her bouncing breasts, tweaking her nipple between his fingers as her entire breast filled his large, splayed hand.

He groaned as her fingernails began to dig into his upper arm, her walls tightening around his active cock. It began to swell with his impending release, though he really wasn't ready for their night to end. He contemplated withdrawing and letting them both settle down before continuing, but figured that with the grip she had on his straining member as well as his arm, she would probably kick him in the balls, then finish without him.

 _'This is not something we want to happen. So thrust away and lose us completely inside her warm, hot body, and then see if she's interested in a round two. Then you can go slowly, you friggin romantic,'_ the voice inside his head chastised him as he swallowed yet another moan from her.

They pulled away with a pop, her forehead resting against his cheek as he turned to set his chin atop her shoulder. He stopped thrusting for a moment, set on repositioning his hips to gain more purchase.

"You'd better keep going," she growled, her body practically humming as she shoved her backside into his engorged flesh.

He hissed at the sudden contact, laughing in his head. _'See? You had to stop, didn't you?'_

"Don't worry, I'm just wiggling around. Gimme a sec-"

She yelped in pain, pulling away from him farther as his hand slipped up and his thumb poked directly into the stitched wound. He felt a wetness to his palm, his eyes flashing up to see a trail of blood leaking down from where his hand had been holding her leg up – supposedly out of the way.

"Dammit…" he growled, Sydney opening her eyes as she resisted the urge to let her hand wander to her still throbbing center.

"What?!" Her eyes rolled once she glimpsed the wound, and she flopped her head back to his shoulder, knowing perfectly well that the Boy Scout in him would want to fix it immediately rather than be consumed in their passion and worry about it later. "Later, Vaughn, please!" she begged, already feeling him lower her leg gently and begin to get off of the bed.

He ignored her as she rolled onto her back, no longer having his warm body behind to hold her on her side. "Please? C'mon, we'll worry about it after…"

"Sorry, we're gonna take care of it right now. Then I'll ravish you – promise." He tossed her a playful wink as he crossed the room to grab the first aid kit off the chair on the other side. The cold of the wooden floorboards began to seep into his feet and for a minute he wished he'd left his socks on.

She watched with aggravated eyes as he maneuvered around the room, and she laughed, despite her desire, looking down at the popped stitch at the top of the wound.

"Bastard," she growled, glaring at it as she once again refused her finger's journey to her heated opening.

Glancing over to where his watch sat on the nightstand, she tilted her head until she was able to read the hands correctly. "1:47 a.m." She dropped her head back down into the pillow and covered her face with both hands.

Turning, he stopped at the sight of her naked on the bed with a fine sheet of sweat beginning to cool on her skin. "Sydney…do you know how beautiful you are?" he asked rhetorically, not really expecting an answer.

"Shut up, Vaughn," she grumbled, her voice muffled behind her hands as he laughed and climbed back onto the bed.

He straddled her legs, his somewhat deflated cock wilting down and touching the crown to the bedspread. He dove in to press a kiss to her stomach, tongue delving into her button before pulling away and re-stringing his needle with a scant bit of thread.

She pulled her hands away from her face, waiting for the pain of the needle to begin, but instead he changed his angle, moving to sit next to her rather than over her legs.

"Promise you won't kick?" he asked, making sure she wouldn't thrash her legs about.

She nodded mutely, confusion clouding her brown eyes – the purple beginning to ebb as she settled her mind to compartmentalize the pain. He aligned the needle, moving closer to her body.

What she wasn't expecting was his mouth to fasten over her swollen and aching center, his tongue swirling around her clit as she groaned. Her fingers grabbed a fistful of his hair as he poked the needle through her skin, keeping her attention away from the pain and instead on pleasure.

He had no idea how he was able to finish stitching her up when his lips, teeth, and tongue were busy on her sweet opening. He certainly had done his job well though – keeping her entertained as he tied the knot and removed his mouth from her channel to bite off the string. The metallic taste of blood mixed with the salty-sweet flavor of her juices, and he felt his cock bounce in anticipation of being inside her once more.

He grabbed the remaining gauze, tilted her leg up, and began to wrap it securely. He didn't remember when the other wrap had fallen off, but that didn't matter. He didn't skimp on the material this time, using it all to create a safe and tight padded cocoon around her upper thigh. Leaning in a pressing a sucking kiss to her clit once more, he stood and grabbed the kit from the bed before tossing it back to the nearby chair.

Almost jumping onto the bed, he was rewarded with her lazy smile and gorgeous dimples as she reached out to him. He climbed directly atop her sizzling body, the tip of his newly engorged flesh pressing to her opening as he slid himself back home.

She groaned, pulling him against her and fastening her mouth over his. They stayed connected below, the only movement from their lips and tongues as they dueled, then slowed, and then dueled once more.

She was addicted to his kisses, chalking it up to the fact that he was French – though she doubted that it had anything to do with his ability to leave her soaking wet with merely a brush of his tongue inside her mouth.

His first thrust was gentle, though his body took over and they became more ardent, her walls throbbing in time with her rapid heartbeat. The familiar heat began to sweep through her body.

His balls began to tighten and move toward his body readying for his impending climax. He groaned as her hips rose up off the bed to meet his eager plunges, the base of his cock rubbing insistently against her clit as the head slammed past her g-spot.

"Oh…Michael," she moaned, her fingernails digging into his shoulder, clutching him close as she smashed her face into his neck.

He knew she was teetering; the mewling from her throat frequenting each and every push told him so. She latched onto his neck, biting and sucking hard at the pulse point she found, soothing over her bite with her tongue. His voice rumbled through his chest, reverberating before leaving his lips in a guttural groan as his hot seed splashed against her tensing walls, the muscles milking him dry with her own climax.

He continued soft thrusts until they were both spent, and though he was beginning to soften she kept him wedged deep inside her, refusing to let him go.

"How are we gonna be able to go back and pretend none of this happened?"

Her voice was hoarse and her breath was a cool whoosh against his heated throat.

"You know what?" he asked, pulling back and wiping at the beaded sweat on her upper lip with his thumb.

She didn't answer, merely turning all of her attention to him with her eyes.

"Happy New Year, Sydney," he leaned in, brushing a sweet kiss to her mouth. "you didn't forget, did you?"

"Yeah…I…I guess I did." She gave a small chuckle, Vaughn rolling to her uninjured side and cradling her body against his.

"You called me Michael."

"I did?" she asked with a smiling squeak.

"Yep. I liked it. Throes of passion and all; it was hot."

Sydney shook her head before pillowing it on his shoulder and tucking her nose against his throat. "New beginning…huh?"

He chuckled, slipping her body farther into his arms and brushing a kiss to her temple as she sighed, completely relaxing in his embrace. He listened to her sleep, mumbling against his shoulder incoherently in her slumber. He smiled, a memory going through his mind before he drifted off:

_'Don't frost the pie.'_

...


	2. Three Sacred Words

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [](https://www.flickr.com/photos/190971129@N06/50576904942/in/dateposted/)

Vaughn's eyes opened slowly and he realized that his face was very cold while his body was warm and cozy. Looking up through the dim light that peeked through the top of the window he could only vaguely make out the bedroom of the safe house as the memories of the previous day, and night, caught up to his fog-addled brain.

Looking down just to verify, Sydney was indeed sleeping against his shoulder and their bare bodies were flush and warm underneath the blankets. He still felt tired, but knew it was because of the overexertion from the previous day's activities. Sighing into the air, his breath billowing steam above them both, he made sure the blanket was tucked around his agent as he sat up, the chill instantly trying to dig under his skin. Spotting a wood stove in the corner of the room, a pile of logs lying beside it in a metal basket, he decided it would be worth the cold trek to find supplies and start a fire.

Maneuvering around to the edge of the bed he sat for a moment in the freezing room before standing quickly and grabbing his discarded sweatpants from their spot kicked to the floor. He looked around for his shirt, finding it on the opposite side of the bed, and pulled it over his shivering frame. Doing enough of the buttons to keep the chill at bay for a moment, his muscles ached and he stretched a bit, his back popping a few times.

Turning, he peeked over at Sydney, the fan of her disheveled brown hair on the pillow and a soft gentleness to her features as she slept making him smile. _'Nothing between us will ever be the same, and I'm not sure either of us really cares.'_

Vaughn made his way on chilled feet into the living room, the fireplace long extinguished due to a lack of fuel, he reached for several of the long matches on the mantle and a few handfuls of newspaper from many years past. Quickening his step back to the bedroom, he found Sydney stretching as the blanket slipped down to reveal her soft shoulder. She instantly shivered and yanked it back over her head with a groan.

"Why is it so cold in here?" Her question was muted by the blanket over her face, and Michael chuckled, walking over to the stove.

"No central heating. I'm going to write the landlord a strongly-worded letter," he complained facetiously hearing a giggle from beneath her temporary shelter.

He got the fire going and the room slowly began to warm. The shrill beeping of the satellite phone in the living room made Vaughn hurry to catch it knowing it could be Jack with an update on their extraction. Holding it to his ear he answered, "Vaughn."

"Good morning. I trust you and my daughter are still well in the safe house?"

_'Why does it feel like he already knows?'_

"Yes. She's still sleeping in the other room and I'm trying desperately not to freeze to death on the couch. Any update on our extraction?" His lie was hopefully believable, though Jack didn't comment on it further.

"Unfortunately everything is grounded for at least another day. The problem here lies in my cover story with Sloane. I notified him that Sydney had made contact but was injured and couldn't get the intel. He asked if I was handling her extraction and I confirmed, but this delay is going to make things difficult at SD-6."

"Meaning?"

"He'll likely want to 'rescue' her to get her back to L.A. faster than the CIA could get clearance for a chopper."

"What can I do?"

"At the moment, I need to know if you have all of your equipment with you."

"No. Sydney's tactical bag was left at the Jeep once we hit snow too deep to drive through. With the injury to her leg I had to choose between carrying her or the bag."

"Retrieve it. If Sloan calls for an extraction at the cabin and they find Sydney's things in a CIA-issue vehicle, she'll be dead before the plane lands."

Michael walked to the door and peeked through the small window. It was softly snowing though the sky was a bright white that nearly blinded him. It was a lull in the storm however, a boon on which they would have to capitalize. "Okay…"

"Why the hesitation?"

"It's two miles to the Jeep through thigh-high or deeper snow and the current temperature is negative thirteen degrees."

"It's Sydney's life, Agent Vaughn. It's also an oversight you both seemed not to take into account."

"You know, Jack -" Vaughn started as his ire began to rise, though he pushed it down and heaved a sigh and checked on the winter clothes that he'd hung in front of the fireplace. Thankfully everything was dry and he nodded taking inventory of the gear. "I'll see what I can find around here that will make the trek faster. I'll check in once the bag is retrieved. Contact us if anything changes with SD-6, I'll need to make myself scarce and get any trace of me out of this cabin if Sloan sends a team."

"I'll be in touch."

The phone call ended abruptly and Michael rolled his eyes while carrying it back into the warming bedroom. He made sure the call was definitely disconnected before glaring at it. "I slept with your daughter last night, Jack." His growl made her laugh as she stayed wrapped in the blanket up to her nose.

"That would have been great," she grinned, her dimples poking out.

Vaughn chortled as he set the phone on the nightstand to her left and crawled back into bed. "So I have to go out and retrieve your bag," he explained, her hands pulling his chilled body under the lifted cover and against her nude figure. "It's freezing everywhere except for under this blanket."

"Then stay in the blanket," she grinned and pressed a soft kiss to the dimple on his chin before peppering kisses along his scruffy jawline.

He sighed and sank into her embrace, the warmth she'd been storing seeping through his clothes and into his skin. His hands splayed across her back as hers took their place against his shoulder blades. Her leg ached though she was getting accustomed to ignoring it, compartmentalizing the pain since it was a constant throb and not sharp stabs. Lifting it caused the muscles to protest, but they relaxed as she hooked her knee over Vaughn's hip, effectively taking the tug off the wound as they lay on their sides.

"If we only have one day until we have to go back to being Agents Bristow and Vaughn, pretending we don't even know each other, I'm going to make the best of it."

Michael closed his eyes at the sincerity of her words as a bolt of excitement went straight from his heart to his groin, a soft agreeing mumble leaving his throat as he pressed a kiss to her shoulder. "How's your leg?" His question was marked by his left hand moving to trace the softness of her calf up toward her thigh as it lounged over his hip, skipping the wrapped gauze and continuing up her waist to grip and pull her lower body into contact with his.

"Fine," she mumbled as her hands reached the front of his shirt, deft fingers undoing the buttons from the bottom up as her fingernails skimmed across the taut skin of his stomach and chest. Sydney pulled her head back and pulled him into a languid kiss, her tongue flicking against his lower lip before he responded slowly. As much as he hated breaking apart from her mouth and body, he knew the lull in the storm wouldn't last. Now was his best chance to get the pack and get back before things got nasty again.

"Okay," he murmured, pulling away and seeing her frown. He gently lifted her leg and slid out, his erection pushing insistently against the loose fabric of the sweatpants. "I have to go get your bag before the storm starts back up."

"What's the worst that happens, Vaughn?"

"SD-6 sends a unit to retrieve you because Sloan gets impatient; they find your things in a CIA-issued vehicle, and murder you horribly before you walk into your apartment. I'm sorry, okay? I'll be as quick as I can. Besides – if you keep this spot right here warm and toasty, I'll stay put for at least 24 hours when I get back."

He leaned back down over the bed and caught her lips once more before rising and moving out into the hallway. The bedroom felt balmy compared to the cool air lingering just outside the closed door, though at this moment it felt soothing against his overheated skin. He gathered the gear up and walked it back to the bedroom. She was in the process of sitting up, a frown of pain stretched across her face as she lifted her right leg up with her arm in an effort to keep the muscles from pulling at the ache throbbing below the wrapped gauze. Though the wound was a little less than two inches wide, it had embedded in the muscle of her outer thigh and gone at least three inches into her leg, the depth causing the ache as the muscles pulled at the stitched skin. The sheet pooled around her waist leaving her breasts bare, and he had a moment of regret at leaving the bed before anything more happened between them.

"I'm gonna scrounge around, see if I can find some painkillers somewhere in this damn cabin," he grumbled, moving to her side and grabbing a few extra pillows to slide underneath her thigh as a prop. The room was a perfect lounging temperature, and he tossed an extra log onto the fire just to keep the heat coming. By the time he turned back, the blanket was tugged back up to her shoulders and she regarded him with a lazy smile, her head resting against the old oak headboard.

He couldn't resist and leaned down to cup her cheek and press his lips against her forehead. She was right – if they only had a day or so with no limits on contact he was planning on kissing and touching her as much as possible.

He returned to the bathroom and tossed open the medicine cabinet, the mildew-laden wood creaking against the rusted hinges. The shelves were empty and a frustrated grumble bubbled up from his chest. Yanking the drawers open one at a time, he was rewarded by a single unopened bottle of Ibuprofen rattling and rolling in the last drawer. Though the bottle had expired over a year ago, he hoped it would still be effective since the seal was unbroken.

"We're in luck," he grinned and twisted the cap, the bottle pouring orange pills into the palm of his hand. "They're a little expired, but let's see how they work. I'll go make some soup before I head out."

Pulling a bottle of water from his pack he cracked it open and deposited the pills and the bottle into her open hands. "Thanks, Vaughn."

"I miss when you call me Michael," he grinned as she blushed with an eye roll, his laugh following him out of the room.

Lunch was short and afterward he helped her dress, caresses and kisses passing between them before he started putting on layer over layer in preparation for his trek back to the abandoned Jeep. Locating a wood-carved walking stick in the closet of the bedroom he handed it over to Sydney as she attempted to keep as much weight off of her leg as possible.

She hobbled behind him to the front door, his gloves in her warm hands. "Please be careful. If it gets too bad or if you don't feel you can make it come back. I can't come get you if you freeze in the woods. We can always try again tomorrow."

Michael nodded with a wide smile on his face as he leaned in and smothered her lips with a kiss. "I'll be back soon. I'm thinking about an hour at the most since I don't have to carry someone through the snow this time. Keep the bed warm, okay?"

She flashed her dimples as he tossed the door open to exit. The heat was sucked out past her legs and the negative temperatures made her shiver. After his departure she set out to explore the cabin, the painkillers kicking in and dulling the ache, though it never fully dissipated. Thankful for the walking stick, she moved to the other side of the living room and pushed open the sliding slats serving as a closet door. Behind the flimsy particle board she discovered piles of extra blankets and pillows, yanking them out one at a time and arranging them on the couch she made a little nest.

The living room was cold, Sydney taking a break from her exploration to toss some of the wood into the fireplace and start it up. Heat radiated toward her cold hands as she fanned the low flames until they raged against the stone hearth. Heading into the kitchen she found, by her estimate, another forty cans of soup, though also running across an expired and likely quite stale batch of spaghetti noodles. Still, the carbs would serve them well, especially after Vaughn's trek to the Jeep and if they kept their intimate activity up. If they were spending the night and day sleeping the soup would be more than enough to keep up their energy high, but she wasn't exactly planning on getting much sleep, so extra food intake was a necessity.

Under the sink she hit the jackpot – a box filled with hot water heating packs. The red rubber was aged, though not cracked, and she set out to find enough water to heat to boiling so she could fill as many as possible before Vaughn made it back.

The water running from the tap was a trickle, and it was freezing, a clear indicator that the pipes leading up from the well were mostly frozen. "Well…snow and ice melts," she ground out leaning heavily on the walking stick. Making her way to the front door she tossed it open as the cold air once again invaded. Large icicles hung from the awning, and she reached up with the stick to knock several down before she slid them into the foyer and closed the door behind her. Sliding them into the kitchen she placed the stick against the cabinets as she leaned against the counter to swing down and pick up the ice.

Turning on the stove, thankful it hadn't run out of gas, she tossed the ice into a large pot to begin the melt before making her way back to the front door to repeat the process until the remaining icicles were out of reach beyond drifts of snow. "Damnit," she growled, the ache of her leg turning into a throb at the constant movement despite her effort at staying off of the wounded limb.

It wasn't going to be enough water to fill more than three of the heating packs. She closed the door and looked around the living room, her eyes falling to the little shovel next to the fireplace. It was dirty with soot and ash, but it would serve her purpose nicely. Hefting it up she opened the door once more and scooped at the snow, leaning over the counter and sliding the snow into the warming pot until it was full.

She repeated this process until a dozen of the bags were full and hot to the touch. Leaving the remaining water hot on the stove she took turns with the bags in the pot making sure they would be warm and ready by the time Michael returned.

Two and a half hours went by and the growing worry in her stomach had her twisted in knots. _'He should have been back by now.'_ The storm had picked back up about forty minutes earlier, and her visibility through the little window on the door was essentially to three steps off the porch, his footprints already covered.

A thud against the door made her jump and she regretted leaving her gun across the room by the couch.

"Syd…lemme in," Vaughn's voice rasped loud as he could.

Sydney grabbed one of the warm pouches from the counter and tucked it under her arm, and moved quickly to toss the door open and allow him to spill into the cabin as the wind whistled and snow blew hard behind him. She helped as much as she could, pulling him in far enough to close the door to keep in the warmth of the cabin. She'd been feeding the fire enough to make the temperature in the living room and bedroom down the hall sweltering, the sleeves of Michael's button-up shirt rolled up to her elbows in an effort to not overheat herself.

"Vaughn, are you okay?"

He knelt on the stone floor gasping for air as snow and ice fell from his clothes in chunks. He nodded his response, tossing her bag to the left into the living room as he held his hands up, wiggling his fingers as much as he could. She pulled the closest wooden chair over to his kneeling form and sat, the stick discarded against the couch. Yanking the gloves off she saw his red, swollen fingers and knew without touching his hands how cold they were.

"Hold this," she ordered, Michael clutching the warm rubber with a shivering delighted groan. She pulled both the hat and thick balaclava off of his head and pressed a warm kiss to his sweaty and cold brow. Tugging the cloth neck of the coat down from over his mouth and nose, ice coating the inside where his breath had condensed and frozen, she noticed that his lips were blue around the edges. She knew she had to get him out of these clothes and into the heating pads as fast as possible.

"Damnit, Vaughn. I said not to push it." Removing the warm pouch from his hands, Michael groaning as he missed the warmth, she unzipped the outer jacket and the inner coat before pushing them off of his shoulders onto the floor behind where he knelt. The sweater underneath was sweaty and cool, though over his chest it was warm. He knelt before her topless, his chest and arms red and splotchy and as she set her hand over his heart she felt it pound with exertion after trudging four miles, two out and two back, through massive snowdrifts.

"Can you stand for me?"

He nodded, his teeth knocking together, and though it took him two or three attempts, he rose on shaking legs as his hands found her shoulders in an attempt to keep his body upright. She made quick work of the snow pants and the tactical jeans underneath and they lay in a pool of cloth, snow, and ice at his feet. Sydney untied his boots and used her left foot to step on the toe of one at a time as he lifted his legs out and stood in stocking feet and boxers in the room. The wool socks were insulated and surprisingly not wet, so she left them on to keep his feet warm against the wood floors.

His whole body was a giant twitching and shivering pile of muscles as it tried to generate as much warmth as possible. Balancing on her left foot she stood, keeping off her right as it hovered above the floor, and led him with a slow limp over to the couch. He fell into the nest and she placed the heat pad back into his frozen hands.

"Put this against your chest, okay? I'll be right back." Sydney pulled the blankets over his head and around his shoulders, effectively swaddling him with the heating pouch.

As fast as she could she went to the kitchen and turned off the stove before grabbing a prepped box filled with the rest of the heating pads, she limped into the bedroom where another cocoon was waiting. Placing one inside the pillowcase and the other ten strategically where he'd be lying, she tossed another log into the woodstove to keep the heat on and made her way back out to the living room, nearly knocking him over as he stood in the hallway with the blanket around his shoulders and the red rubber against his chest.

"I – I can't g-get warm, Syd," he mumbled through chattering teeth and she put herself between him and the wall, using it as support while dragging him into the warm bedroom, kicking the door closed behind them to keep the heat inside.

She got him in and situated on the bed, his groan of pleasure as he came into contact with the heating bags making her smile. She used the bed as a crutch and hopped to her side before shedding her clothes and slipping under the blankets, Vaughn's hands between their bodies still clutching the hot bag.

"It's okay, I've got you." Sydney pulled him close, keeping his head on the pillow as she pressed her warm body against his cool skin. His head slid forward, forehead against her collarbone, and she could feel his jaw clenching and unclenching over and over again. Michael's breathing was in short pants against her breasts as he dropped the pouch between them to slide his hands forward and wrap around her rib cage under her arms. Shivering against the frigid fingers she scooted the rest of the way against him and pulled his quaking body close, her arm over his tucking his hands between her arm and side.

Her leg was throbbing, but there wasn't much she could do about it at the moment. Raising and hooking it over his hip she felt the coldness of his thighs and backside against her calf. After a few minutes his breathing began to calm and she realized he'd fallen asleep. As time passed the shaking tapered away, her hands wandering over his back feeling the warmth seep into his body. She grabbed the closest hot bottle and held it against the back of his neck while making sure the one he'd dropped between them was firmly against his stomach, held in place by her own body.

She felt like she was going to burst she was so hot. Sweat beaded on her forehead and she felt a few wayward drips travel down her neck, but she wasn't going to move until she knew he was alright. If that took hours swaddled in four blankets with a dozen heating pouches and a wood oven going full throttle, that's how long it took.

Sydney set her cheek against his forehead and closed her eyes, though sleep was elusive as she tried to stay conscious enough to hold the bottles against his body. Her fingers slid idly through his short hair and she smiled as she thought of the hundreds of times she'd imagined running her hands in this same way through his neat cut. Two hours passed and the wood stove began to die down, Sydney knowing she'd need to rise and toss in more fuel if the room was to stay hot.

Loosening her hold on his body she grimaced as she lifted her leg, the pain shooting up to her hip and catching her a bit off guard at the intensity. Pushing past it she pulled away, Michael's hands tucked under her arms tightening and keeping her in place as he lifted his head to fix sleepy green eyes on her soft features.

"I didn't mean to wake you. I was just going to put more wood on the fire," she admitted with a soft whisper as her breath fanned his forehead. He didn't respond, merely brushed a kiss against her collarbone without releasing her from his grip. She propped her leg back up over his hip with a wince and settled into his arms with a soft resigned sigh. If the entire room was freezing at least they would be warm under the blankets.

His eyes were closed again and she thought he'd drifted off until his hands slid further around her back pulling her closer. Vaughn's head moved up and he pressed his face into her neck peppering light kisses against her throat. Rubbing her soft cheek against his temple she closed her eyes and sank into the tingling feeling that was radiating from deep in her stomach.

Gentle fingers traced invisible lines down her back toward the curve of her hip before trailing back up to her shoulder while his lips moved up from her neck to her jaw. He pulled his head back and opened his eyes to give her a lazy smile. Sydney was lying slightly higher than him on the bed which granted her access to his lips, so she pressed a sweet kiss against his mouth. They fit together perfectly, the kiss slow and languid, unrushed.

"I'm going to miss doing that," he said, his voice a whisper.

Sydney merely nodded in response and opened her eyes, Michael smiling as he brought up his hand and cupped her cheek, thumb brushing across her swollen bottom lip.

"Did you know that when you're turned on the center of your eyes have this purple color?" He saw her grin and lift her eyebrows, a soft negative shake of her head the only answer she gave. "Now, every single time I see you, if there's any purple in your eyes it's going to drive me crazy."

Sydney blushed and pressed a kiss to the bump on his nose before settling her head onto the pillow and regarding him with a dimpled smile. Leaving her cheek, his hand reached between them to pull out the red pouch filled with residual warm water, tossing it off the bed. Pulling her flush in his mouth fastened to the crook of her neck and shoulder, sucking at the soft skin and leaving a pink mark behind. Her breathy moan made him smile as his tongue soothed the spot before moving down and trailing across her collarbone to dip into the indent between throat and chest. Her skin was slightly salty as she'd been sweating in their cocoon while he'd slept, Michael lifting his head over hers and giving the right side of her neck the same treatment as the left.

Deciding that she'd been idle enough through his gentle ministrations, Sydney moved her hands from their spots around his shoulders. The arm tucked beneath his body moved up to play with the ends of hair at the nape of his neck while the other dragged a fingernail along the muscle lines of his upper arm down to his elbow. Moving back up she set her palm flat over his heart, the steady beat thumping quickly.

Pulling him close using the leg looped over his hip it made her center press against his hardness trapped behind the thin fabric of his boxers, the last barrier between them. His mouth stilled against the soft skin below her ear and he moaned low in his chest while his fingers massaged the muscles of her back. He held still as her hand moved lower between them to trace the stiff outline with the tip of her finger before finding the split at the front of the clothing and guiding him out and against her wet opening. Letting go and settling her hand over his heart again she tilted her head to press a soft kiss to his shoulder.

Moving one hand into the bent crook of her knee he held the painful leg up at an angle to keep the wound elevated, pushing his hips forward to slowly slide an inch at a time into her wet channel. Her breath was a ragged exhale against his hot skin and he had to close his eyes, forehead pressed against her jaw and nose tucked against her neck. Once he was as deep as he could go he stilled and held her, the realization hitting him in the heart that this may be the last time for a long time that he could chance holding her, especially _this_ close.

Sydney moved first after a moment passed, lifting her head and fixing her doe-like brown eyes, complete with lusting purple iris', on his pleasure-filled features. The worry wrinkles of his forehead were standing out, and the hand over his heart moved up to press them away with gentle fingers, a kiss following. A soft smile relaxed his face as she fluttered light kisses across his eyebrow, closed eye, and cheek before settling on his mouth.

Michael pulled his hips back achingly slow, and she felt emptiness seep in behind his departure. It was short-lived as he pushed back in, the pace something she'd never experienced. Typically by the time she and anyone else had gotten to this point, Vaughn included, it was the last dash to the finish line. It dawned on her that this wasn't the same sex she was used to. This was something she'd never had before but had heard about in all those cheesy romance novels and made for T.V. dramas: this was love-making.

Tears filled her eyes at the thought of this being the one and only time this happened, and for an instant her heart broke. Those three, sacred words bubbled up and she couldn't stop them. Her position against his neck ensured that her mere whisper floated up to his ear easily, Michael stilling as he slid in to the hilt and held her shaking body against his, neither willing to meet the uncertain gaze of the other.

She'd said it – she said she loved him. The three little words he'd wanted to hear from her so badly for who knows how long, and it finally happened. A small smile worked across his lips as he brushed them against the lobe of her ear.

"Me too," he responded, pulling back with his hips for another tender and slow thrust. He felt her relax under his hands, the tensing of her shoulders disappearing instantly.

His pace stayed slow as if he was intent on memorizing every inch of her body from the inside out, and her breathy moans were soft yet echoing in his ear with the closeness of her lips. She could feel the familiar tingle and burn in her lower stomach, the angle at which they were laying ensuring that each thrust, no matter how slow, pushed against her g-spot first until the base of his shaft nudged her sensitive button before he pulled out. He felt the flutter of her inner muscles as she gasped against his throat, her orgasm sending shockwaves from her head to her toes as her body tensed in his arms. A brief flash of pain tried to poke in past her pleasure, the contraction of her wounded thigh reminding her it existed, but it was easy to ignore as she squeezed her eyes closed until stars danced in the blackness.

Michael chuckled quietly against her shoulder moving his mouth up against her ear once more, "how many of those do you think I can get out of you tonight?"

The pitch of his voice was low and gravelly, almost unrecognizable, and it very nearly sent her off the edge again. "Please let it be a hundred," she begged with a breathy whisper as she sucked air into her suddenly starved lungs.

The shrill beeping of the satellite phone sounded from the nightstand next to the bed, Sydney sighing dejectedly, confused for a moment as Vaughn's reaction was to hold her tighter and shake his head.

"Ignore it."

"But-" she was cut off as he pulled his hips back and thrust slightly faster than he had before, her mind blurring with the pleasure until the ringing broke back through.

"No. Right now…you're mine. They can't have you," his voice was commanding making her smile at his moment of possession.

Any other time, any other place, she would have slain him with the patented Bristow glare at the mere insinuation of her being owned by anyone. But at this moment it made her feel warm. He felt her nod against his shoulder as he pulled his hips back and thrust once more, picking up a slightly increased pace, though much slower than their previous night together. He sprinkled kisses against her shoulder and collarbone, small pink marks marring her skin in his wake until he pulled his head up and back to allow his cheek to rub against hers. She moved slightly and their mouths found one another, lips and tongues moving almost as slowly as their lower halves.

The ringing stopped leaving the only sound in the room his occasional moan and her breathy cries as she tumbled off the cliff into another orgasm, his mouth taking in the sounds as his right hand moved up to cup her cheek and hold her in place for his kisses. His hips sped up though he kept the strokes long, nearly pulling free of her warmth before pressing back in again until the base of his cock rubbed against her nether lips.

Their mouths broke apart and both gulped in air, his hand leaving her cheek to slip between them to lightly swirl his thumb over her swollen nubbin. "One more time, Syd," he pleaded against her mouth, his hips keeping the same slow rhythm. 

Her previous orgasm never really stopped, merely acting as a rising wave for something larger, and his finger against her clit was fanning the flames in her belly. She crashed into oblivion and the contractions of her inner muscles milked him dry as he moaned long and deep into her mouth, their kissing taking a back seat to breathing, their lips brushing with each exhale.

Minutes passed as they stayed connected, his body pulling from hers as he adjusted his hips. Sydney's face was tucked into his shoulder and Vaughn's into her hair at her neck, neither wanting to be the first to move because if they did it would end everything. Michael felt the air in the bedroom begin to cool and peeked up from his vantage against her shoulder to see smoldering embers instead of flames in the woodstove. The sky outside was starting to darken and he knew night was coming.

He also knew he had to call Jack back and see what the news was. The best case would be another day in the cabin making love to Sydney while the worst case would be Sloan deciding to rescue her by sending a retrieval team. The latter meant he had to scrub every ounce of his presence from this building and leave her behind while hiking to a CIA extraction point. The middle ground was that the CIA had found a break in the storm and was sending a unit to retrieve them both and their time would be just as short.

"What I said," she started with a soft voice against his shoulder, Michael tensing for a moment thinking maybe she had regrets. "I meant it."

Vaughn relaxed with a sigh and pushed a kiss against the top of her shoulder. "Thank god," he muttered. "I don't know what I'd do if you'd taken it back."

**…**


	3. The Voice & The Eyes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [](https://www.flickr.com/photos/190971129@N06/50576810246/in/dateposted/)   
> 

Sydney was home on the couch with her leg propped up on a pillow two days later, the book atop her lap ignored as she stared into space lost in memory. The apartment door opened and Francie stepped in tossing a soft hello. When she didn’t get a response she moved into Sydney’s line of sight making the brunette jump, then laugh.

“I’m sorry, Fran – I was a million miles away.”

“You’ve been doing that a lot since you got back from your trip. Anything you want to share? I mean…I know we aren’t as close as we used to be, but I’m still here if you need to get something off your chest.”

“Nah – nothing new; just thinking about stuff.” Sydney felt a twinge of guilt, but still shook her head while screaming, _‘I have to tell you everything’_ inside her mind, another smile flashing her dimples. She wasn’t prepared for Francie’s scrutiny as the dark woman dropped next to the couch and stared at her friend’s neck.

“What’s that?!” A wide toothy smile split Francie’s face as she laughed. “If nothing is new…how did you get that?” Pressing a manicured finger into the purple spot just above Sydney’s collarbone, the spy internally cursed that she absent-mindedly wore something that didn't hide the love bite.

_‘Well – come up with something.’_

“You…you know that guy I said I had a crush on?”

 _'That’s not coming up with anything…that’s literally telling her everything.’_ There was the Bristow side of her brain, chiming in. Some days it sounded just like her father.

 _‘What’s the problem with that? She won’t know the whole truth. I can get this weight off of my chest and swear her to secrecy as soon as the words leave my mouth.’_ She still hadn’t figured out what side the counter was yet, but it had been winning more often than not the last few days. She wanted to think it was her fighting back, but lately it had been taking the accented tone of her mother, which was throwing her for a loop.

“The guy from work? With the girlfriend?” Francie made her way into the kitchen to grab some wine and two glasses, excited for the first time that Sydney was finally moving on from Danny and more thrilled that she was sharing the news.

“Well – he…they broke up.”

“Wait…you and your crush went on a business trip together this weekend,” Fran paused pouring the glasses, Sydney feeling slightly guilty for spilling her secret, but it was too hard to hold on to at the moment. “Please tell me that this story ends with you two in bed.”

“It was so good, Fran,” Sydney blurted through an exhale, a blush tinting her cheeks as she busied herself with a swig of wine finally taking the opportunity to speak openly, with a few little lies, to her best friend. 

_‘As long as no one from work finds out, right?’_ That unknown part of her mind said giddily, the voice sounding suspiciously like herself some ten years ago when things were less complicated. The Bristow side scowled wanting to respond, but she pushed it back.

Francie discarded her jacket and kicked off her shoes with a squeal, flopping onto the couch and regarding Sydney with dancing eyes. “How good is _so good_?”

“Best I’ve ever had good.”

“Damn. Details, woman!” 

The words ‘don’t tell anyone, especially not Will’ were dancing on her lips, but her breath stopped in her throat when the front door opened and said man in her unspoken warning stepped in with a smile and a wave.

The Bristow brain voice sent out a worried, _‘oh good! Nothing bad could come of_ **_this_ ** _.’_

 _'Maybe she won’t say anything. This was_ **_clearly_ ** _girl talk.’_

Francie didn’t get the mental memo. “Will! Sydney is seeing that guy from work.”

“What?” His eyes flew to their shared friend, panic rising in his chest. He pushed it down and tried to play along with a curious half-grin, though a million questions popped into his head at Francie’s words.

“Yeah! You know…the guy from the bank she’s been going on and on about? We should totally celebrate! Invite him over for dinner, I’ll cook.”

 _'I don't go on and on about Vaughn,'_ Sydney thought defensively.

Francie seemed oblivious to Will’s fake smile overshadowed by his panic-ridden face as well as Sydney’s ‘caught with her hand in the cookie jar’ wide brown eyes.

“I can’t, Francie. Remember – we’re not supposed to date because of bank policy. I mean, depending on the project, he’s my boss. It was totally a...a one-time thing.” Sydney tried not to meet Will’s accusing eyes as she stared down at her twisting hands in her lap.

“Only once, huh?” Fran tossed her a grin and saw both blush.

“No, that's,” blush, “that’s not the point. The point is, we agreed that it wouldn’t go anywhere. I mean...we could both lose our jobs.”

Francie scoffed with an eye roll as she hopped up and moved into the kitchen. “So just break the rules and be happy! Say one of you gets fired. Boom! You need a new job anyway, Syd. What kind of boss sends you on a trip and after you get hit by a car makes you work the weekend anyway? I’m gonna get changed, but this conversation isn’t over, just so you know.”

Will glared daggers into the side of Sydney’s head as she watched Francie walk down the hallway and close the door to her bedroom.

The moment she was out of earshot Will jumped in the air and tossed his hands out with an exasperated grunt. “What the _hell_ , Sydney?!” His harsh whisper was low to keep from echoing.

“I know-”, she started but he didn’t give her a chance to explain – not that there was an explanation she’d be ready to give.

“Did…did you really – you and Vaughn,” he stuttered, unable to finish the sentence.

The rapid opening and closing of her mouth and darting eyes were her answer.

“You could _die_ Sydney. Death. Like…shot, stabbed, blown up kind of death!” 

“I didn’t plan it!” She growled looking down the hall to Francie’s closed bedroom door.

Will sighed and ran his hand over his face. “And you’re just…telling Francie?!”

Sydney rolled her eyes and tossed the abandoned book to the end of the couch. “You’re not even supposed to be here tonight. I could have just given her my secret and sworn her to silence and you never would have known anything.”

“You guys aren’t still…you know-”

The beeping of her cell phone on the coffee table made them freeze, Francie groaning as she emerged from the hallway. Will put on another fake smile and moved into the kitchen to grab a beer from the fridge, deciding he desperately needed a drink.

“C’mon! Lemme guess – you gotta go in?”

“Joey’s Pizza,” echoed in her ear as she didn’t respond merely hanging up.

“Yeah…I’m sorry, Francie. When I get home tonight we’ll talk, okay? Promise.”

Francie glared at her from over the counter, “all the details?”

Sydney cast a glance over at Will seeing him wide-eyed and shaking his head, flopping down at the table. “As many as I can give you.”

“Do you at least get a few days off after this? You got hit by a car in Hong Kong, Sydney. Your devil boss couldn’t give you like, a week?” Francie grumbled and followed her into the bedroom, flopping onto the end of Sydney’s bed with a disgruntled look on her face.

Sydney grinned as she set the crutch against the edge of the dresser and pulled off her camisole standing in her bra and pajama pants as she rummaged for something professional and yet simple. Butterflies danced in her stomach at the thought of seeing Vaughn again, though she wasn’t even sure if he was the one with a message for her. Still, she didn’t realize how much she missed him, and the last two days had been a new type of torture.

“Wow, Syd. You’ve got it bad, sweetie.” Francie laughed, and Sydney realized she was standing in front of the mirror pressing a light finger to the love bite between her shoulder and neck. Snapping out of her internal dialogue and tossing a glare to the ebony woman on the bed, she yanked a dressy shirt over her head. She made sure the two to three visible love bites were sufficiently hidden in the process.

“Will your crush be at the meeting?”

“One-time thing, Francie,” Sydney reminded her with a sideways glance before she slid on the slim work blazer. 

“You didn’t say that. In fact, you heavily insinuated that it was _not_ a one-time thing. Come on; we used to tell each other everything."

“I said I’d give you details, Fran, but right now I have to get to the office. Nudged by a car doesn’t stop me from sitting at a computer on a conference call with some rich guy worried about his loan status.” She sighed and rolled her eyes to the ceiling. “What can I tell you right now that will hold you over?”

“How many times did you…you know? I mean, best you’ve ever had, had better be more than once or twice.”

Sydney’s mind drifted back to Vaughn’s gravelly voice in her ear taunting about how many times she would come that night, and it sent a spark of heat straight to her center. “Like…five?”

Francie didn’t say anything, merely formed an ‘O’ with her lips.

The blush rose before she could stop it as she slid as best as she could into the dress pants, her leg twinging as she lifted and extended it through the hole of the soft fabric. Francie just watched with a smarmy grin across her lips as Sydney tucked the crutch under her arm and made her way to the living room.

“Well…I feel bad for you.” Francie announced lifting her discarded glass of wine, moving into the kitchen as Will sat at the table looking over the day’s paper with pretend interest, a beer in his hand.

Sydney frowned hooking her purse over her shoulder grabbing her keys from the hook by the door. “What? Why?”

“To only get the ‘best sex ever’ once in your life? Bummer,” she grumbled as she flipped on the stove and turned to rummage through the fridge.

Will tossed a glare before rubbing a hand over his face as Sydney grabbed her phone making a quick exit.

**…**

The two agents bounced around in the ring, helmets on and gloves high, sweat soaking into their shirts from the exertion. Weiss tossed out a left hook catching Vaughn in the chin as the follow-up right jab connected with his cheekbone, Michael hitting the mat with a thud.

“Okay…seriously. You – are you just giving me the win?” Eric panted through tight lips as he extended his hand to his partner and helped him up.

Vaughn laughed and shook the stars out of his head as he held his hands up in defeat. “No, that was legit.”

“No, it wasn’t. You’re not even here right now, are you?” 

The two men leaned against the top rope as Vaughn took his helmet off and regarded Weiss wryly. “Where else would I be?”

“Who the hell knows, man? It’s been like this ever since you got back from Russia.”

Vaughn couldn’t stop his mind from wandering back to the cabin, a wistful and faraway look taking over his green eyes. A solid punch to the shoulder brought him back as he met the narrowed eyes of Eric Weiss.

“You’ve been distant and day-dreamy ever since you got back from Russia. In which you were trapped in a cabin for just over 24 hours with Sydney. Alone.” Michael looked away across the room as he squeezed his eyes closed trying to banish the images of her lying in front of him on the bed, the breathy moans against his neck, and not to mention the three little words he’d been carrying like a hidden badge of honor since she’d said them.

_‘He’s going to hound you relentlessly now. Weiss smells blood.’_

_‘I can’t tell him. I can’t tell_ **_anyone_ ** _.’_

_‘Who would he tell? He’s on your side, always has been. He told you to go out with her in Nice.’_

Vaughn fought the back and forth in his mind until he realized Eric was just staring at him.

“Please tell me you didn’t do what I think you did.”

_‘Hell with it. If I can’t trust Eric Weiss, who can I trust?’_

“We maybe...might have-” he mumbled, Eric’s eyes narrowing as he looked around the gym making sure that they were alone. Thankfully, there wasn’t another agent in sight, so Weiss turned and tossed his gloved hand into the back of Vaughn’s head once, and then again.

“Ow! Stop!”

“You _fucking_ idiot!” Michael tried to block the hits in vain, and though they weren’t particularly strong strikes, they were coming quickly and only to his head. 

“What-” punch.

“The _fuck-_ ” punch.

Michael lost his footing and fell backward onto the mat, Weiss climbing up and straddling his waist as he pushed his friend’s hands away and proceeded to knock him around.

“Were-” punch.

“You _thinking_!” punch. 

Michael redirected one hit. “Stop hitting me!” 

“No.” punch.

“I love her…okay?”

“No shit-” punch.

“What do you want me to say?”

Silence. Pause. Punch.

Vaughn grumbled, “you can't make me regret it, Weiss.”

“Even if it gets her killed?” Punch. With the last blow, Eric stood with a huff, out of breath once again. “If _I’ve_ figured this out, much smarter men already know. And when Jack shoots you and stuffs you in the trunk of his car, _I'll_ have to be her handler. And I'm _way_ not ready for that, she is a **_huge_** pain in the ass. Look – I’m happy you guys are all, you know, in love and stuff, but seriously think about never doing it again."

Michael started to sit up, “if you’re happy, then why were you hitting me?”

Punch: one last hit to the side of his head before Weiss pulled the gloves off and tossed them to the mat. He flopped down across from his dejected partner and looked him in the face, Vaughn concentrating on the beams of the ceiling above.

“Hypothetical: if it was the last time you ever got to have sex, was it worth it?” Weiss finally asked his question after a few minutes of silence. Vaughn nodded instantly.

“Definitely.”

“Details?”

“Like what?” Michael grinned as he met Eric’s curious brown eyes with a mischievous green glint. His finger hooked the collar of his shirt and pulled it down revealing the purple love bite against his shoulder that he’d been trying to keep hidden since his return.

Eric whistled and laughed. “So: good?”

“Pretty much the most amazing thing ever.” Vaughn shook his head as his brain tripped down memory lane yet again for the millionth time since he’d gotten back.

“Stop. The faraway look; the stupid grin; I get it. You’d better control yourself, dude. Do _not_ let Jack Bristow find out. Or Kendall. Or Arvin Sloan – especially Arvin Sloan.”

A cell phone rang from inside the gym bag at the edge of the ring, Vaughn jumping up to catch it and relay to Eric that they were needed upstairs. Hitting the showers and changing back into their suits they made their way back to the rotunda.

**…**

“Good work in Russia, Miss. Bristow.” Kendall stood with her father as she made her way toward them, the crutch hindering her progress slightly.

“Vaughn got the intel, not me. Did we get anything from the hard drive or photos?” She couldn’t keep her gaze from darting around the office looking for familiar green eyes and disheveled hair. Francie’s prodding had fanned the flames of memory and even just seeing him from across the room would soothe her mind so she could sleep tonight.

Alas, he was nowhere to be seen. Mostly disappointed she also felt a little relieved. She’d done a stare-down with herself in the rear-view mirror of the car, and no matter what she could think, she couldn’t get the purple hue out of the center of her eyes. She didn’t want to believe him when he’d pointed it out, but he was right. 

_‘But if he’s not here he won’t see it.’_

“Agent Bristow, are you listening?”

_‘Shit – was Kendall talking that whole time?’_

“I’m sorry – I’m still not sleeping very well. The leg tends to throb at night.” Her father gave her a sideways glance, concern shining in his blue eyes. “One more time.”

“There was a mention of the EMP weapon on the flash drive and the photos were of locations. We’re putting a team on acquiring the device and should have the prototype by the end of the week.”

“Will the retrieval still be with this office? Or are they passing it to someone else?”

“It would if we had a team to retrieve it. Jack, explain.”

“Sloan got intel of the weapon through another source. While he had asked me to research and plan an operation in Russia, the one you and Vaughn completed, I told him that no information could be gleaned from the drive you’d recovered. Unfortunately, Sark had another contact that passed the same information to Sloane that you acquired in Russia. The mission appeared to be for nothing.”

 _‘Maybe for you,_ ’ she countered internally as she sighed and set the crutch against a chair while leaning on the adjacent desk. 

“So what’s the plan?”

Kendall shook his head pointing to her leg. “There is no plan for this one. Even if we find out where the device is, you aren’t going in for retrieval. And you weren’t included in any meetings Sloan had yesterday or today. He’s sending your partner: Dixon.”

“He gave me five days off – there wasn’t anything I could do about it.” Sydney got defensive. “I didn’t choose to get stabbed in the leg. Could we get there first?”

“It’s possible - but we’ll have to be spot on with the locations and hope it works out. That’s not how I like to operate,” Kendall grumbled, turning to Jack. “Why were you left in the dark on this?”

Sydney sighed coming to her father’s defense, “all high priority weapons, tech, or anything Rambaldi-related is being sent for analysis to some unknown third-party. Since the Cole incident, Sloan and the other Alliance heads decided they would be safer off-site in a non-disclosed location. It’s need to know for Alliance directors, no one lower.”

“That’s the intel I need to get from Sloane.” Jack’s resolved voice broke the tension.

“He’ll never give it up, Dad.”

“We’ll see. Either way, enjoy the next few days off. I’ll let you know if anything comes up.”

She thanked them both and slid the crutch back under her arm, turning and making her way back out to the main hall. The evenings were very quiet, the hallways empty, and it gave Sydney time to think as she made her way toward the underground exit.

“Sydney, a moment?” Her father’s voice behind her made her turn with a curious frown.

“Did I forget something?”

“No. I just…well – I just wanted to see how you were doing.” Unable to keep her gaze Jack looked to the front of his coat and dusted at imaginary flecks from the fabric.

A soft smile played her lips as she answered, “I’m okay, Dad. The doc says I should be good to go in a week or so.”

“I’m glad everything…turned out alright. I checked in with SD-6 to make sure they hadn’t sent a team without notifying me when you didn’t answer that call.”

It was Sydney’s turn to look away as she glanced down pretending to realign the crutch with her stance. “I’m sorry Sloane got the same intel with a lot less hassle,” she commented wryly. 

_‘Work. If I change the subject back to work he’ll follow.’_

He didn’t have a chance to answer as Weiss and Vaughn entered the rotunda. “Kendall’s waiting; you’re late,” Jack barked, Weiss holding his hand up in an apology as Vaughn took the moment to study Sydney’s downturned face. A soft smile played at her lips but she hadn’t lifted her gaze. Eric pulled Jack away back toward Kendall as they discussed their upcoming meeting giving Vaughn a ‘you owe me’ glare.

“How’s the leg?” His benign question to any outsider would have looked professional, but the tone in his voice was gravelly and low.

“Why would you use that voice,” she growled as a smile popped out as she studied her shoes, her breath catching mid-sentence.

“Can you not even look at me?” His whisper was meant only for her as he stuck his hands in his pockets and he rocked back on his heels. Again, to anyone outside the conversation it would look like they were merely chatting. The truth of the matter was that his palms itched to touch her and his pockets were the only safe place at the moment.

“You don’t want me to, Vaughn.” She adjusted the crutch again, eyes creeping up and landing on the lowest button she could see. His jacket was slung over his shoulder with the light blue oxford tucked neatly into the band of his dress pants. There was that same, pearlescent button from Russia staring her down. 

Alone for a moment in the hallway, though surrounded by windows and security cameras, she felt his eyes on her like two green lasers. Pushing a breathy exhale past her lips she looked up and darkened green met purple-hued brown.

“Damnit,” Vaughn cursed as he quickly turned, the purple lining her iris making his heart jump into his throat and desire pool low in his stomach. “That’s dirty, Bristow,” he growled and walked away to follow Weiss and her father.

“I said you didn’t want me to,” she tossed with a chuckle in his direction.

“See you later, Syd.” His voice had a sadness to it that only she would have picked up on, and she responded with a worried chew to her bottom lip watching him walk away. 

_‘This is going to be so much harder than I thought.’_

Heaving a sigh she closed her eyes and shook off their encounter before heading back to the apartment. The living room was quiet, though Francie was seated on the couch and gave her a big smile as she walked in. “Was he there?”

“Yeah," she admitted, hanging her keys up and dropping her purse on the side table with a sigh.

“How did _that_ go?”

“He said one thing and I…melted on the inside.”

Francie giggled and scooted over on the couch to give Sydney room to flop down, her leg immediately propping up on the coffee table. Sliding a full glass of wine into her hand Sydney laughed knowing she’d have to make good on her promise for details. 

“I can’ believe I’m telling you thisss,” Sydney slurred as she tipped the last of the glass into her mouth, Francie ready with more to pour. The first bottle was long gone, and the second was on its last legs.

They’d ended up on the floor, Sydney’s leg propped at an angle on the coffee table, and with no work for the next few days they’d both decided that a girl’s night of talking about sex and drinking wine was on the menu.

“Why? I’ve told you plenty about all the guys I've ever dated.” Francie giggled. “So…from behind. That’s hot.”

_‘You have no idea.’_

Sydney nodded, Francie continuing. “So what about the second time?”

At the mere mention, Sydney’s face blushed and she looked down into the newly refilled glass with a whimsical smile to her lips. “It was kinda perfect.”

“Wait – earlier you said ‘like five times’. You’ve told me about two. You’re saying the second time was like…three times?”

Sydney nodded. “This is gonna sound corny…but – have you ever made love to someone?”

Francie raised her eyebrows, “yeah, I’ve had sex before.”

“No – not sex. I mean…not just sex – you know?”

Francie shook her head and took another swig of wine. “Like…not sex but sex?”

Sydney struggled for the words through her cloudy, tipsy brain. “Like…slow.”

“Ppft, hell no. Slow? Please. With Will getting that analyst job and me at the restaurant, we barely have twenty minutes of downtime twice a week. Ain’t nothin’ slow about sex right now. But it’s still good, you know?”

Sydney nodded with a giggle. “It’s entirely too late for this. I’ve spilled my soul to you about my one-night stand and I consider my promise fulfilled.” Struggling to her feet, the crutch a lifeline as she swayed, Francie laughed and staggered up as well, sticking the cork back into the nearly empty bottle.

“I’ve missed this, Syd.”

“Me too.”

**…**


	4. It's...Pretty Serious

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [](https://www.flickr.com/photos/190971129@N06/50577126691/in/dateposted/)  
> 

After a week, things had healed with her leg enough to allow walking without a crutch. The stitches had been removed and a new pink scar joined the myriad of others on her body, almost all kept hidden since it would be nearly impossible to explain them away as ‘bank-related injuries’.

Friday night rolled around, Sydney limping a little through the door with a sigh. Hanging her purse in the usual spot she tossed her keys with a clang into the metal bowl in the small foyer. She was currently bored out of her mind. While she appreciated being left to heal and had been craving a break from the missions, she hadn't realized how addicted she was to fieldwork until she was stuck doing five days of analysis straight in a row. It’s possible she’d never complain again, though she knew that not to be the case.

“Oh my god, it's _you_. A Friday night with no business trip?”

“Yeah, the boss has been keeping me in the office and giving me what he thinks is rest and relaxation.”

“And you seeing your crush every day makes it _not_ restful or relaxing?”

Sydney chuckled. _‘God I wish I’d seen him even once the last ten days. Analysis equals no counter missions.’_ “No, he hasn’t been around this week. He’s my boss depending on the project, and I'm not doing anything under him right now.”

“But I’ll bet you wish you _were_ under him, huh?” Francie saw the blush and eye roll the brunette sent her way. “I’m glad you’re here because the Summer Block Party is tonight. You promised you’d help bartend but we figured you’d be out of town. No getting out of it, now. Get red-dress sexy, and be ready to have sore feet, little miss banker.”

She was actually excited, though she pretended to be put-out just to see Francie’s hand hit her hip and a glare narrow her eyes. Begging forgiveness with a dimpled smile she moved into the bedroom to stare into her closet. It had been forever since she’d just gone out with her friends, helping Francie at work notwithstanding, so she decided to go all out. Red tops were the uniform, so she decided to break out the little red dress she’d bought months ago and not yet worn. It was light and stretchy tight around her chest and torso before loosening up and flaring out to hit mid-thigh in length. Paired with heels it would make what she thought her best feature stand out: her legs.

Keeping her hair long and loose but putting a tie on her wrist in the event she’d need to pull it back, she set out to freshen up and deepen her makeup. Going for smoky eyes she made the lines on the lids a bit thicker, finishing it up with a deep red lipstick. 

They were waiting for her in the living room, Francie looking a bit more professional but sexy all the same despite that fact. A shrill noise filled the air, and they all froze with disappointed eyes at the sound of her cell going off.

Sydney’s frown was genuine as she’d been given no mission by SD-6 and therefore couldn’t fathom why the CIA would call. She answered with an exasperated, “hello?”

“I need to see you at the warehouse, and before you get too excited, your dad will be there.” Vaughn’s voice was like a breath of fresh air that fanned the longing in her soul, though she was choosing to focus on the first instead of his second sentence. 

“I...I have plans, will it take very long?” Michael frowned, though he could hear the softness in her voice after the abrasive hello and knew it was because she wasn’t alone while speaking, more than just Will present else her conversation would have been more open.

“I wish, but no. Just a debrief on new intel. But...know that you may not get a weekend. I’ll make sure they leave you alone tonight, though.”

She nodded. “Okay, I’ll be right there.” Hanging up she calmed the hurt look on Francie’s face, “I have the laptop Dixon needs for a meeting. So, you two head out. I’m going to drop it off and then I’m on my way. No real work, I promise.”

“You swear?” Francie pointed with a styled fingernail in her direction with narrowed eyes. 

“I swear. A half-hour tops. Then I’ll mix drinks and put up with catcalls until your event is over.”

“You’d better,” she ebony woman growled, grabbing things off the counter and heading out to the car. Sydney stopped when she felt Will’s hand on her arm, looking up with a curious frown.

“You’re terrible at hiding when he calls by the way, but...you may want to entertain a jacket. I dunno if the poor guy needs to see _this_ Sydney before a weekend alone,” his low voice hid a laugh, Sydney blushing and looking down at her outfit. 

It was definitely not workplace professional, warehouse or not. But it was a million degrees outside and a jacket would probably kill her. “Well, then he shouldn’t have called on a Friday night,” she said quickly, Will shaking his head.

“You’re a monster.”

“He’ll live.”

_‘Besides. He’s gonna be in a suit and tie and it’ll probably have the same effect on me that this dress will have on him. Well...maybe.’_

**…**

Vaughn tried to hide his excitement and act casual as he made small talk with Sydney's father surrounded by fencing and wooden shipping containers. His mind wandered a moment thinking about what was hiding in these old containers. 

_‘I wonder what her plans are for tonight?’_

Vaughn was fairly sure that Jack knew something had happened between them. Though they'd only had one interaction passing in the hallway at the JTF for five whole minutes, Jack had been a pain in his ass all week seemingly out of the blue. Kendall had tasked Michael to meet with Sydney an hour ago about the intelligence that had hit his desk earlier today, but when he was about to leave the bald-headed ruiner of all things flung “Jack will be joining you,” over his shoulder on his way past. Doubting it came from nowhere, Vaughn had to pretend that his excitement hadn't been taken out and shot behind the shed.

It had been ten days since he’d seen her and while they’d been apart just as long or longer in the past, they were right when worrying that after the cabin, things would be different. Going back to the way things were didn’t seem to be an option any longer.

"Vaughn?" Jack's questioning voice pulled him from his thoughts, the steel-blue eyes boring into his soul as if Bristow Senior knew what, or rather whom, he'd been thinking about.

"Sorry, Jack. Have...have you ever wondered what's in these crates and containers?"

"You need to have a conversation with my daughter."

"What?"

"I'm not as blind or ignorant as the two of you would have me be, and you need to reestablish appropriate protocols or you’ll be removed as her handler faster than you can ask me why.”

“We haven’t even seen each other since-”

“Don’t. You think I don’t know my daughter, but I do and I _will not_ let you get her killed.”

Vaughn stayed quiet, though he didn’t bother to hide the anger in his jade eyes as he folded his arms over his chest, the holster biting into his armpits. “No, keep going, Jack. Seems like you’ve been holding this in for a while.”

The challenge honestly surprised the father, knocking him out of his comfort zone as the foreboding intimidator. “I've spent my whole life protecting Sydney, and I will not have everything we've worked toward ruined by an underqualified handler with a crush.”

“Where were you when Sloane raised her for a year? How about when he recruited her? Where were you when she was having her teeth pulled in Taipei? Or when she learned the truth about Project Christmas and her mother? She didn't look to you for help with this stuff, and you didn't save her any pain when life threatened to swallow her, Jack.” Vaughn took an unnaturally confident step forward seeing that he’d put the unflappable Jack Bristow off-kilter. What he wasn’t prepared for was the hurt that dulled the man's steely countenance and the sudden slump of his weary shoulders. Deciding to back off he unfolded his arms and held his hands out palms up in surrender, deciding to try pure honesty.

“Jack, I’ve been there for her when you weren’t, and you helped her when I couldn’t. Can’t we both admit we love her and stop fighting each other so damn hard?” Michael let his arms fall to his sides slipping hands back into his pockets taking back up his casual stance. 

The heavy metal door at the far end creaked and groaned against the rusted hinges, the following clack of heels on the cement announcing her arrival. “I will _never_ risk her life, no matter my feelings, and she won’t risk everything she’s fought for or forget the people she’s lost to validate hers. Trust me when I say this isn’t something you need to keep worrying about. Focus on getting her out of the game, and then we can have this conversation."

Sydney’s arrival or not, Vaughn honestly expected a punch to the jaw, but the father instead straightened his shoulders and tie and stepped toward the sliding door of the cage to greet the subject of their argument. Compartmentalization was a spy’s best friend.

Michael’s hands were suddenly clammy in his pockets. He knew the moment she came into view he was going to have to fight the desire to pull her into his arms, with or without her father present, however he wasn’t entirely prepared for the vision she made in that tiny red dress. His mouth was instantly dry, and a lame smile and an awkward wave were all he could muster as Jack pulled the gate open. Fortunately, the bear he’d just poked put his focus on Sydney and launched into the description of the intelligence.

It was actually exciting news: some new Rambaldi something or other, a chance to get ahead of Sloane somehow, and a big opportunity to break into the security system of the blah blah blah. None of it mattered. The only thing that mattered was that red dress and the length of her toned legs.

_‘My god, pull yourself together. You’re thirty-one years old, not fifteen. It’s not like you haven’t seen her in a dozen disguises much skimpier than that dress.’_

_‘But those were disguises. This...this is Sydney. Wait. Did she have a date tonight?’_ His heart plummeted into his stomach and it suddenly became the one thing he wanted to ask her.

He caught back up with the brief, Jack’s voice echoing in the tall space, “Sloane isn’t aware of us having this intelligence, so we can mount an operation in the coming week that will put us a step ahead.”

“Wow, that’s huge,” she exclaimed with wide eyes. “Do you think this could be a big hit?”

Vaughn nodded deciding to get into the conversation and not seem like a gawking teenager, “we think so. We’re still vetting the intel, but it looks legit. If we can get to the off-site facility we’ll have access to a lot more than just the Alliance’s Rambaldi cache. Weapons, tech, cell locations, the whole nine.”

She was desperately trying to concentrate and look as if she was hanging on every word he said, but he was standing in his oxford and tie, suit jacket left in the car or office, with the brown leather holster straps cinching the button-up shirt to his shoulders, and it was an awful distraction.

“I’m sorry if this interrupted a night out,” her father said awkwardly, Michael nearly holding his breath as she waved it off.

“It’s okay. How fast can we move on the intel?”

 _‘Well_ **_that_ ** _was a nonanswer,’_ Vaughn’s mind grumbled.

Jack nodded, “Quickly, I hope. If this is as big as I think we’ll finally have all Alliance facilities and staffing lists within a few days.”

The father saw the hope in her eyes, the excitement at the prospect of bringing down the bad guys and getting out of the double agent life, but also saw her sideways glances at the agent whom had surprisingly put him in his place just moments earlier. Yes, he planned on getting Michael Vaughn back for his candor, but a small part of his ego respected the fact that the man was finally standing up for himself in a vague attempt to justify wanting a relationship with his daughter. And the fact that she was clearly more excited to see her handler than the news about the impending doom they were preparing to serve the Alliance, he knew that every fight to keep them apart would fail.

So he did what he never thought he would do in this situation. Jack Bristow gave up.

“I have a meeting with Kendall, so I’ll head out. Have a good evening, sweetheart,” he said with a slight strain in his voice. He leaned in and kissed her on the cheek before nodding to Vaughn and leaving. Sydney moved to follow as Michael stepped in line behind the pair, his eyes drawn to her swaying hips. 

He stifled a groan, disappointment bubbling up from his stomach as he closed the gate behind them. He’d spent all morning memorizing blind spots in the warehouse camera feed and was overjoyed at the fact that their cameras didn’t have built-in microphones. If they could just scoot to the right before the exit, a private bay was inaccessible to any view.

“Oh, I forgot my purse.” He barely caught the exclamation, halting only a few inches from her warm body as she dead stopped ahead of him. Jack left through the door without looking back, Vaughn rooted to the spot as she breezed past to retrieve the conveniently forgotten possession. She smelled wonderful, the perfume lingering and putting a goofy smile to his lips as he remembered the scent against her throat just over a week ago.

Waiting until she returned he set his hand to the small of her back as they headed for the exit. A tiny gesture, though the brush of his fingers through the light fabric of the dress made every inch of her skin tingle. Michael grinned at the confused look on her face as she assumed he was escorting her out. 

Clearly, he hadn’t understood what _‘oops I left my purse behind’_ actually meant. Tugging her to the right before the exit she followed him into another caged-off area, though there wasn’t a door for this particular bay. Seeing him shove his hands into his pockets and take a step back made her stare him down with curious, purple-centered brown eyes.

“You...did you have a date tonight?” He couldn’t stop the words from tumbling from his lips. 

Sydney kept her distance only because she knew there were cameras. _‘He had to have brought you over here for a reason, right?’_

“That’s all you wanna say right now?” He could hear the small excited tremble in her voice.

“Well, it was going to be ‘you look amazing’, but...my brain pricked me with insecurity and now I...I can’t handle the thought of you spending the evening with some guy while wearing the most amazing dress I’ve ever seen you pour yourself into,” he said quickly, his palms twitching as he waited for her to answer.

She didn’t reply right away, looking left and right seeing metal cabinets lining the gate in a secluded u-shape. “Are...aren’t you worried about the cameras?”

“This is a blind spot and the place isn’t wired for sound.” 

“Why didn’t you say that earlier,” she growled, reaching up and grabbing the straps of his holster to yank his mouth over hers.

He groaned as his hands circled her waist hauling her body flush against his as he set to relearn her taste. Their tongues dueled and she moaned into his mouth before they broke apart taking gasping breaths, her hands still clutching the warm leather. Gone was the sudden need to claim as they remembered how perfectly they fit against one another. Their lips met again, gentle and soft, as his hands splayed across her back.

“God I missed you,” she whispered, feeling him nod as she studied him with half-lidded eyes, his still closed as he breathed her in. “Of course I didn’t have a date tonight,” she added, “I’m kind of seeing this guy and it’s...pretty serious.”

Flashing his crooked grin he met her gaze, “well that’s good because...I’m kinda seeing this girl and it’s also pretty serious.”

“What a coincidence.”

“Mmhmm. In fact, I’m supposed to be telling her right now that we need to try really hard to keep in mind agent/handler protocol, or else her dad’s gonna have me transferred.”

Vaughn’s fingers played along the edges of the straps crisscrossing behind her back, the silk ribbons smooth and cool contrasting her soft, warm skin.

“I see you’re taking to heart everything he said,” she chuckled as she slid one hand flat over his heart as the other moved up to play with the hair at the back of his neck.

“Why the dress? Did you wear it just for me?”

She laughed and leaned in to press her nose to the column of his throat. She kissed the side of his neck and inhaled his scent before pulling away with a look of regret on her face. “That’s...the reason I have to go. Francie is having a big event at her restaurant and I promised her that if I was in town I’d work the bar.”

“Ah,” he let her slip out of his arms, though the seconds that followed felt empty. “You should go.”

They knew it was the right thing to do. An extra five minutes at the warehouse was nothing, but spending any more than that was a risk they shouldn’t take no matter how much they wanted to entertain the notion. However, convincing their eyes to part was nearly impossible.

“It’s going to be hard to leave every time now, isn’t it?” Her soft question hit him in the heart, and all he could do was nod in reply. 

Reaching out he brushed a loose strand of hair behind her ear cupping her cheek and leaning to capture her lips. “Be safe,” he whispered.

If she didn’t leave now she never would. “Nite, Michael,” she said softly hearing his groan as she turned and walked away.

"I love it when you call me Michael," his words followed her as she hit the exit.

**…**


	5. Warehouse, Intel, Concussions, Oh My!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [](https://www.flickr.com/photos/190971129@N06/50575930828/in/photostream/)   
> 

“Sloan’s sending me to Luxembourg to hit a secure storage facility,” Sydney said hopping onto the crate across from Vaughn as he sat in the folding chair waiting for her arrival. He smiled softly not trying to hide the once over as his eyes scanned her figure. His back was to the camera which afforded him a little bit of freedom with his gaze. Her blazer was left behind, the black, form-fitting button-up shirt professional and slimming as it dipped down her waist before diving into the top of her knee-length grey skirt.

She pulled a file from her purse and passed it over, the pair allowing their fingers to brush underneath the thick cardstock before he settled back and looked through the papers. “What for?”

“There’s this box of discs he wants me to locate from a former K-Directorate associate that he thinks is back in the game, this time as a free agent. His explanation was that we needed to keep the information out of the hands of terrorists, but I’m fairly sure he just wants the contacts on the discs for new weapon or tech trade deals.”

Michael nodded as he read, Sydney taking her own opportunity to study his features, a small smile tilting her lips. She’d journeyed from the worry lines of his forehead to his cheekbones and was settling on the dimpled chin when he caught her staring. 

“Enjoying the view?”

“Immensely. Did you see it?”

He frowned, the wrinkles popping back up. “See what?” Not wanting to be bested, he looked back down at the pages.

“Page three. I knew I’d seen that location before,” she spoke quickly in excitement and pulled another batch of paperwork from her purse. She was thankful for the tenth time that day that she’d grabbed the bigger of her bags on the way out the door. “It’s a match to a piece of intel you and my father got last week. That's the same storage facility where the Alliance keeps their data cache.”

“No.”

She nodded with a devilish smile. “It’s there. Everything is there.”

Michael held up his hand seeing the excitement in her eyes. “Hang on, let’s think about this a bit before rushing in with a Seal team.”

“I’m already going to be there, Vaughn, I can just-”

“No,” he dismissed, his eyes scanning the page again. Realizing it came out harsher than he intended he looked up to see a frown darkening her features. “I mean...I don’t think it’s a good idea. Yet. We don’t have any time to prepare for this; you leave in four hours. We have no clue about the security, what you’ll need to access the floor, or even the room where the Alliance keeps the cache. It may be multiple rooms and you’ll shoot your timetable trying to get it all done without tipping off Dixon.”

She pulled back her anger a bit. “Vaughn, this could be it; this could be the thing that makes everything worth it.”

“I know, Syd, but losing you to get it doesn't work for me. Just...give me time, okay? A couple of hours to look into things. If I can get something together before you leave we can meet again to go over the details.”

She sighed and he saw her defenses drop a bit, disappointment in her eyes. “Okay,” she acquiesced.

“Really?”

Surprise crossed her face, “what?”

“You’re...not gonna fight me at all?”

She rolled her eyes, a soft smile playing at her lips, and stood looping her purse over her shoulder preparing to leave. “I thought about it, but ever since the cabin you going all protector makes me feel fuzzy instead of frustrated. Which is annoying.”

Michael laughed and stood, opening the gate door for her, following until they reached their little nook to the right of the exit. Their things hit the floor and arms wrapped around one another, each letting out a pent up sigh. She could feel the tension in his shoulders slowly give way under her hands as she tucked her nose against his throat letting the scent of his aftershave close her eyes.

“Can you promise me something?” Her whisper pulled him from the intimate moment and he leaned back with a nod, cupping her cheek and brushing his thumb across her freckled cheekbone. “I want you to really consider this. An occasional kiss in the off-camera corner of the warehouse isn’t the relationship I want to have for the next who knows how many years.”

He agreed with a crooked smile. “I promise. If I can figure it out, I’ll let you break into their floor and steal their things.”

“Vaughn,” she grumbled, “I'm serious.”

He frowned casting his attempt at humor aside as his other hand slid back down, wrapping around her waist. “Sydney, you are all I think about every day. I’m not going to stop trying to bring them down with you, and yes - if I can safely get you in and out, I’ll make it happen. But...you have to promise _me_ something in return,” he ordered, his wary green gaze boring into her purple-lined eyes. “If I can’t figure it out, if the intel doesn’t come through, promise me you won’t go down there and try anyway.”

He felt her stiffen and begin to pull away, but his hands tightened around her lower back was and kept her in place even when her palms flattened against his chest. “Promise me,” he ordered, though kept his tone soft with a hint of pleading.

“Vaughn-”

“Sydney, I know you. I know how determined you are, and so am I. Believe me when I say I want to take you to every restaurant in the city and to my apartment and everywhere in between, but I’ll take who knows how many more years in the corner of this warehouse if it keeps you in the corner with me.”

She groaned, though he felt her body relax and lean back into his, “ugh, you’re so annoying,” she growled pressing her mouth to his for a brief kiss.

“Promise me,” he smiled against her mouth, set on enjoying their last few seconds together while also attempting to win the argument.

“Promise,” she grumbled between kisses before pulling back, picking up her purse, and leaving.

...

Dixon sat quietly studying her face as she read over the mission details again, though he knew she’d memorized them before leaving the office earlier that day. The airport this afternoon was nearly wall to wall with moving passengers, the two agents seated in the waiting area to board the plane.

“Who’s your new guy?” His question caught her off guard, her head tilting to the side eyeing him with feigned surprise.

“You’re my only guy,” she joked with a dimpled grin looking back to the files.

A chuckle bubbled up from his chest as he crossed one leg over the other, the ankle resting just above his knee making him lean back in the seat. Tossing an arm over the back of her chair he leaned in so their conversation stayed private. “You have that glow again.”

“Hard to glow when you’re not seeing anyone,” she quipped keeping her eyes from his by scanning another page of information she already knew.

“Yikes, it’s going that well, huh?”

She sighed knowing he wasn’t going to let it go. Deep inside she wanted to tell him that she was happy and excited but that it was brand new and they hadn’t committed to anything quite yet. It was a half-truth, but she wasn’t sure who was listening from where they sat, so she continued to play it off until her phone rang.

“Be right back,” she mumbled, pulling it out of her purse and standing with a stretch.

“Tell him I say hi,” Marcus chuckled grabbing the discarded folder from her seat and thumbing through the pages.

“Hello?”

“Hey.” She wondered how long it would take for her heart to stop fluttering at his greeting. “I know it’s at the buzzer, but I got it figured out. Jack’s going to meet you in-country. He convinced Sloane that he’d seen some of the discs before and would be able to help corroborate the intel faster if he was there. He should be calling Dixon right now to inform him of the change in operations.” Sydney looked up seeing her partner a couple of rows away reach into his pocket and answer his buzzing phone.

“Yep. So what’s the plan?”

“You go through with whatever you’ve been tasked to do for Sloane. Dixon will be in the basement accessing the security systems, and Jack will coordinate from the van. Once you’re both in place your dad should have about ten minutes to get to the third floor and access the Alliance intelligence. He and Kendall made a plan of most to least valuable intel and he’ll go for the highest first, but you’ll need to buy him some time. You’ll be on the eighth floor, so take your time getting there.”

“Okay.”

“He’ll have two-way devices for you both so you can communicate without Dixon getting wind of anything.”

“Thank you,” she sighed with relief, Dixon hanging up and rising as the flight attendant over the speaker announced boarding for the business class passengers. He looked to her and waved, “I gotta go.”

“Be safe, Syd.”

As the plane leveled off, Sydney sipped at the ginger ale watching the clouds pass underneath as Dixon sat engrossed in a book on his lap. Reaching into her purse she pulled out her chapstick. Feeling she click against her fingers, she activated the bug-killer. Tossing it back in knowing it was good for 90 seconds, she retrieved a book of her own and flipped it open, a heaving sigh leaving her lips and pulling her partner's attention.

“What's up?” His voice was low concern, though that went away as he saw her looking down at her book with a gentle smile bringing out the dimple on her left cheek.

“He’s really great,” she admitted not looking up from her reading.

Dixon laughed and leaned in to set a kiss to her temple. “Good. If he ever isn’t, send him my way.”

**…**

His heart was pounding and blood roared in his ears as he took the stairs two at a time, Jack’s voice in his left ear intermingled with the struggling sounds of Sydney fighting.

"Hurry, Marcus," the father's voice was desperate, and though the climbing agent knew he meant well he also knew the frustration was stemming from the fact that the elder Bristow was stuck in the van. 

Getting to the eighth floor in record time, his lungs and legs burning, he compartmentalized his age and slammed the recoded key-card over the reader to the right of the door. It flashed green and he turned the knob throwing it open with his shoulder.

His eyes adjusted from the dimly lit stairwell to the bright white of the hallway. The empty hallway. The storage facility was, thankfully, a giant box standing nearly ten stories, though most of that was underground. He’d gone from the basement to the eighth floor in around a minute, gasping breaths pulling much-needed oxygen into his lungs, but his worry wasn’t over his cardio - it was over his partner who’d bitten off more than she could chew by the sound of things over the earpiece.

An echoing crash sounded ahead to the left, and he took off in a sprint. Rounding the corner he saw a giant hulk of a man standing between him and Sydney, the agent on her hands and knees at the guard’s feet trying to catch her breath with a hand clutching her stomach. Hands with fingers like bananas picked her up by the back of the tactical vest and tossed her headfirst into the opposite wall as if she weighed nothing.

Momentum was his friend, Dixon running as hard and fast as his legs would push as he lowered his shoulder and caught the giant in the side. It was less of a tackle and more slamming shoulder-first into a brick wall of muscle and bone, but it was enough and the guard hit the floor with a wheezing thud as Marcus’ shoulder knocked the wind from his lungs.

Clambering quickly to his feet, his legs feeling a bit like melting butter, Dixon turned concerned eyes on his partner. Sydney was upright with her back against the wall, a steady flow of blood leaving a red streak down her cheek to the angle of her jaw from a blunt crease splitting her left eyebrow. Her hands were in the process of taking off the heavy bulletproof tactical vest. If she really had to fight, it was far too bulky and limited too much of her movement.

“You...you okay?” His voice was quick as he panted, Dixon extending his arm to help her up intending to get out while the brute lay on the floor, but a split second later he felt like a truck slammed into his stomach knocking the air from his lungs and making stars dance at the edge of his vision. Sydney gasped as the guard held the dark-skinned agent by the vest, the only thing keeping him upright, the other giant fist shooting out to connect with his face. Blood sprayed from his lips as he hit the floor on his side, his arms struggling to push himself to his knees.

“Dix-,” Sydney was cut off as the lumbering giant reached out and wrapped his hand easily around her throat. With her vest discarded he didn’t have much else to grab, and prompted by the ache of his side, he decided that bringing the slight woman up to his level would be less painful than bending down.

She sucked in a ragged gasp the moment before he closed her throat with a granite grip, her heart pounding behind her eyes as the guy lifted until her face was level with his leaving her feet to dangle above the floor.

"Steal from us? You little bitch," His German was angry, though in her panic she wasn’t able to translate what he’d said past a couple of words. She felt the massive fingers squeeze and knew she only had a handful of seconds to get loose. Marcus was struggling to get back on his feet and she could dimly hear her father's voice asking about their status behind the roaring in her ears. She kicked her leg out catching him in the stomach, but it just seemed to make him angrier. He took a step back, his grip ever tight bringing her with him, and then with a forceful push he slammed her back into the wall. Whatever air she had left would have been lost if his hand wasn’t blocking the exit, and she winced at the pain of her shoulder blades and the already tender knot at the back of her head hitting the wall.

Mustering what strength she had left, she used the punched muscles of her sore stomach to swing her legs up and wrap them around the thick arm that was currently choking the life out of her. Assessing their positions in a fraction of a second, muscle memory kicked in. The only maneuver that would be successful would be a standing armbar, so she wrapped her legs up and around the tree-trunk-like limb, wedged her feet into his armpit, and pushed. This didn't loosen his clutching hand, black tinges creeping into the edge of her vision as her lungs burned desperate to take a breath. It did, however, force him to back up a half step and free her from his pushing hold against the wall.

Throwing her body left and lifting her hips with a sudden jerk against his elbow, she spun toward the floor. This caused his arm to rotate unnaturally, her hips forcing the elbow to bend the wrong way, and with the sudden spin of her weight she felt as well as heard the ulna snap.

His hand instantly released her throat and she dropped the rest of the way landing with a thud followed by a gulping gasp. Sucking air into her oxygen-starved body, the blackness faded away, hands grabbing at the back of her shirt trying to pull her up.

 _"Come on, what's it gonna take!?"_ She couldn't believe the guy had recovered so quickly but relaxed when Dixon’s familiar voice wheezed in her ear.

"Let's go."

He kept an arm around her waist and all but dragged her coughing and gasping toward the stairwell. The howls of pain bounced off the walls from the writhing guard behind them, neither looking back.

Once through the door the mechanism locked, the LED switching from green to red. Sydney sunk to the floor clutching her side and squeezing her eyes closed and everything spun making it seem and feel like she was falling. Reaching back with her free hand she felt the knot at the back of her head, a remnant of the guard's surprise attack when finding her in the supposedly unguarded storage room. Dixon settled in the same fashion, Sydney cracking her eyes and peeking with a wince.

His right eye was already beginning to swell shut, the angry reddish purple welt starting above his cheekbone and surrounding the entire outside of the socket. Blood dribbled down his lips and chin from a bloody nose and, though it didn't look broken, it was hard to tell how bad the damage was from the low light and where she was sitting.

Dixon let his head fall back against the cool cement wall with a pained groan, his lungs still sucking in air from his run up the stairs as well as the punch to the gut. They both felt the need to move, though neither seemed to possess the energy at the moment.

"Thanks," she said, her voice gravelly as if she'd been screaming all night, and his head tipped in her direction to see the angry red finger marks on her throat and the still bleeding wound at the edge of her left eyebrow.

"You okay?" His question was equally as hoarse.

She grunted in response and sat up, managing to get on all fours as several drops of blood hit the floor between her hands. She frowned and poked around until she hit a tender spot, pulling her hand away with a wince at the red-stained fingertips. Pushing to stand the room spun, and she leaned into the wall in an effort to stay upright.

"That's a nasty concussion," his voice bounced off the angled stairs and closed-in walls, Sydney nodding in agreement with instant regret as her vision doubled and flipped forcing her to tightly close her eyes.

Below them, several stories, a door swung open hard and hit the wall behind it. "Let's go!" Jack's voice echoed up the stairs making the pair sigh, stumbling down to the parking garage and into the van.

**…**

"Did you get the discs?" Sloane’s voice crackled over the speaker on the cell phone, Sydney and Dixon listening from their spots flopped atop the plush seats of the private jet, heads tipped back and eyes closed wallowing in pain and waiting desperately for the extra strength meds to kick in.

Dixon held a bag of ice wrapped in a towel against what amounted to his entire face with a second against his left side. Sydney had one tucked to her right ribs as the back of her head rested on another in an attempt to reduce the swelling knot, the hit giving her that plus a nasty concussion. The partners looked miserable, Jack mused, knowing they probably felt as bad as they looked. In that moment he was thankful that he’d joined the mission. Sure he was also excited about the information he’d managed to glean from the third floor, but there was no way either of them would have been able to drive the van out of that facility.

"The team was compromised."

"Compromised? It was essentially unguarded; what happened?" Both agents lifted their heads firing glares across the aisle at the phone in Jack's hand, the older Bristow sending them a compassionate wince.

"The point is we didn't get the discs. What's the next move?"

Arvin sighed on the other end, the brief silence making Jack check the screen to ensure the call hadn't dropped. The pair dropped their heads back, Sydney groaning and flinching as the tender bump came into rough contact with the lumpy cold bag.

“Come home, there will be a car waiting at the airport. Sydney and Marcus, check into medical when you get here and we’ll prepare a cover story for your injuries; send me a list. I’m disappointed...but glad that you’re all okay.” With that he hung up, Jack closing the phone and setting it to the small table before turning to face them both.

“Thanks for getting us out, Jack,” Dixon said, his voice muffled behind the ice pack. Pulling it away, the twisted paper towel sticking out from his nostril acting as a quick fix to stop the bleeding nose, Jack winced at the man’s face.

“Diane is going to lose her mind,” Jack commented with a wry grin. Sydney closed her eyes, her father patting her knee and making her jump, “don’t fall asleep, sweetheart; you can’t with that concussion.”

“I was...just gonna rest my eyes,” she grumbled in response, her father taking in her words for a moment before a rolling chuckle left his lips. 

Cracking her eyes back open she saw the mirth on his face. “What?”

“You used to say that when you were a little girl,” he mused. “We went to war every afternoon getting you down for a nap, and we always knew you were about to fall asleep when you would pout and announce that you were just going to sleep your eyes. I think you felt better when it was _your_ decision to nap, and not one we made for you.” Leaning back in his seat he picked up the small plastic cup of bourbon and ice, the liquor burning his throat.

Dixon joined with a chuckle, though held his ribs in pain giving up a moment later. “Well, I don’t have a concussion, so I’m going to sleep this off.” 

"I'm not sure that's how it works," Sydney sent him a lop-sided grin, her friend shrugging. Rising on stiff legs he moved to the back of the plane and settled onto one of the short sofa seats, the ice pack settled back over his face. A few quiet moments passed until he began to snore, Sydney sitting up with a wince as she found herself unable to hide the excitement from her eyes, the right more dilated than the left and looking very lopsided. Shaking her head to rid the blurry dizziness, she looked around until finding what the wanted.

“Grab my purse,” she ordered, Jack frowning at her sudden demand, but followed orders anyway placing it onto her lap.

“We should change that gauze,” he mumbled as his eyes took in the blood-soaked pad he’d taped over her eyebrow, the edge beginning to brown indicating that the bleeding had stopped. He watched her fumble for a minute blinking and squinting into the recesses of her bag, a grin tilting his lips. “What are you looking for?”

“Chapstick,” she mumbled, the opening of the purse blurring as contents doubled making them hard to grasp, but her fingers finally brushed the small tube. It clicked and she tossed it back in, dropping the bag to the floor by her feet. “Ninety seconds. Tell me,” she ordered.

Jack looked behind him toward the cockpit, the door to the pilot closed, and then over her shoulder toward Dixon seeing him blissfully passed out. Setting the glass down he leaned forward to pull her smaller hand between his palms, the expression on his face one she’d not seen for a while: hopeful.

“Sydney,-” he swallowed, “I...I got everything.”

**…**

They’d been transferred to an SD-6 hospital the moment they got to L.A., the pair kept overnight for the concussion along with Dixon’s need for x-rays. His cheekbone and orbit weren’t broken, just bruised, but they kept him for observation anyway. Their cover story was a car accident, which was honestly believable aside from the finger-shaped bruises on Sydney's neck that they covered up with makeup before anyone could see. It was the second car accident excuse on Sydney’s record in two weeks, however, but Francie bought it when she and Will visited along with Dixon’s wife until hours ended. The hardest part was staying awake until the doctor’s felt that sleeping wasn’t a threat, which wasn't until nearly six the next morning. Jack stayed with her the entire time, chatting quietly and keeping her distracted. They couldn't talk about what they each desperately wanted to talk about, but reliving less painful memories was a night well-spent.

They sent her home a couple of hours after giving her the clear with two stitches in her eyebrow and a prescription for Vicodin that she was planning on ignoring. Francie left after visiting for a three-day small business conference in Chicago, so it was just her and Will at the apartment. This meant she didn't have to wear makeup to cover the bruises both day and night, for which she was supremely thankful. She’d slept almost all day which meant that as the clock hit two in the morning, she was wide awake.

Her CIA cell rang, Sydney setting her book down atop the cozy comforter and reaching with a grunt to pick it up off the nightstand. “Hello?”

“Can I meet you at the warehouse?” His tone was sharp and worried, and she’d honestly been hoping he wouldn’t call after he’d gotten the details of the mostly successful yet disaster of a mission. She knew there wasn’t much chance that he’d restrict contact after hearing what had happened, but she was still happy at the sound of his voice, even happier at the prospect of seeing him so soon since the last time. The five or six-day stints of no contact had to have been eating at him as much as it was her, she was sure of it. 

To be fair, she was proud of these particular injuries. Her getting trounced by the seemingly twelve-foot tall security guard with ham-hock fists gave Jack plenty of time to get vital information they needed off the secret Alliance server in the storage facility. Still, she’d hoped to at least get rid of the bruises before seeing Vaughn again knowing how much he hated them.

“You sure?” 

“Sydney,” he growled his response.

"I'm not exactly a pretty sight right now."

"Sydney." Apparently, that was his only response for the evening. 

“Twenty minutes?” He agreed and hung up, her muscles protesting as she climbed out of bed. Stiffly walking to the closet she stopped. This wasn’t an official meeting, and she doubted that Vaughn would be upset if she showed up in pajama pants and a camisole. Slipping the pants over her hips and tying the string to keep them from falling down, she grabbed a discarded long-sleeved shirt lying on the chair next to her dresser and padded into the dark living room toward the door.

“Hey,” Will whispered from the darkness. Though his attempt to keep from scaring her was noble, she still jumped.

“Damnit, Will,” she grumbled, slipping her feet into the flip flops. “Why are you lurking in the kitchen?”

He didn’t answer, though in the glowing light of the open fridge she spotted him holding a bowl of Francie’s famous chocolate pudding in his palm, the plastic wrap dangling off the edge and a spoon in his other hand.

“Meeting?”

“Yeah, just got the call. I couldn’t sleep anyway, so it's as good a time as any.”

“Uh-huh.”

She regarded him with a frown, moving into the kitchen so they could continue with a whisper despite the fact that Francie wasn't home. “Will, it’s where we always meet for counter missions, don’t worry about it.” She accepted when he held out the spoon offering her a bite.

“You’re not going for work, Syd, or you wouldn’t be going in pajamas. Just...don’t make a habit of hooking up in a secret location or people that you don’t want to notice are going to start noticing. You don’t need to screw everything up just before taking everything down,” he chided with a soft line of worry furrowing his brow.

“Eat your pudding. I’ll be back,” she promised, though cursed mentally that he knew her so well.

"At least take my car instead of yours. If they drive by, it'll look like you're home where you're supposed to be at three in the morning recovering from a massive concussion." She stopped half-way across the room before looking back with a grin.

"That's a good idea. You'd make a good spy," she said returning to lift his keys off the counter.

"Look, I know I've just traded complaining about your bank job to complaining about your spy job, but if you weren't distracted from going to meet Vaughn you would have thought of it too."

"Will-" he cut her off.

"I love you, Sydney, and I want you to be happy. But you told me what these people will do if they catch you, and I think that meetings like these are too much of a risk. Vaughn should agree and know better, and you both should have realized that already."

"I'll be back in a bit," she grumbled, her anger stemming from the fact that she knew he was right.

“Tell him I say hi,” he whispered, her glare almost invisible in the darkness of the foyer, the sound of the door clicking in her wake.

**…**


	6. If We Can...Shouldn't We?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [](https://www.flickr.com/photos/190971129@N06/50577173181/in/dateposted/)  
> 

The briefing room was uncommonly full as Kendall and her father detailed the operation. They had found the name of the person the Alliance had been using to store and transport Rambaldi artifacts from the information gleaned in Luxembourg. As luck would have it, the man in question was having a soiree at his estate in northern England just after three of the newly uncovered artifacts had been transferred. According to the information, they were to be in the basement holding facility beneath his 17th Century mansion.

“Agents Weiss and Vaughn – you’ll infiltrate the party and then access the secure storage facility. We can’t risk removing the artifacts so you’ll have to take detailed photographs for analysis. It’s not a step ahead but at least we won’t be behind. Agent Bristow, you’ll be in the tactical van a few miles out. I don't need to explain how hidden you need to stay, but you have the most experience here with Rambaldi items and I want your eyes on those artifacts as soon as possible. Questions?” He paused, continuing when no one spoke up, “wheels up in an hour.”

Sydney’s cover story with Sloan was a vacation to London. He was oddly ecstatic that she was finally taking time for herself after everything in the last three weeks.

“He actually said he was happy for me and that I deserved it because of all the brilliant work I do for the American government,” she growled, her father driving her to the airport for her separate flight out of L.A.X.

“He’s not wrong,” Jack stated with a pause, “he just...doesn’t know how right he is.”

She sighed and nodded. “Thanks for the ride, Dad.”

“Be careful when you get there. This is Alliance hierarchy and they know all of the cells’ top agents. If you get spotted it’ll get back to Sloane faster than we can plan. No going into the party, and no heroics.”

“I know, Dad. I’ll be careful.”

“The drive to the tactical van is just over two hours which should be plenty of time and distance to shake a tail if you find you have one – and Vaughn and Weiss will be staying at the hotel across the street from you. We didn’t want to risk you all being in the same location.”

“I know all this. What’s going on?”

Jack parked the car and let it idle, Sydney’s eyes burning into the side of his face. “I think we’re close, Sydney.”

“To…”

“To the end of the Alliance. With everything we've gained in the last month, I feel that I could put together an operation with your help that could have far-reaching consequences for the twelve.”

The hope that sprang into her eyes was quick. “Really?”

He finally turned and met her eyes before he set his hand over hers. “I’ve tried for almost a month to have this conversation with you, and while it’s possible no one else can see the sideways glances during briefings and secret corner conversations, I’m not that naïve.” He paused. “It may be that you’re my daughter and I have a – habit of being overprotective, but I can't unsee these details.”

_‘Shit.’_

“What are you talking about?” Trying to play it off, she attempted to appear confused.

“You and Vaughn.” Jack tossed out watching her suddenly honest face. His warm-up with information about the Alliance had pulled her from agent-mode and dropped her guard, and the first emotion to hit her eyes in these instances was always the truth. She had panicked.

“You _cannot_ have _that_ relationship with _this_ job, Sydney.” He looked away at the blush that rose from her neck as she turned her head and squeezed her eyes closed.

“Dad-”

“Make good decisions from here on out. Whatever happens could get you both killed. Don’t forget that.” They finally made eye contact and Sydney expected to see anger turning his eyes dark, but she saw simply weariness.

She nodded, “Okay.”

**…**

"I must say, Mr. Arnaud, you certainly know a great deal about Milo Rambaldi." A rotund man's German-accented English bounced around the ornate library.

Vaughn, posing as famed historian and Rambaldi enthusiast Renee Arnaud, stood feigning deep interest in the conversation. The _real_ Renee Arnaud was being held by French authorities until the operation was complete.

Weiss was standing off to the side acting as his translator, the German not speaking French yet determined to have a conversation with the Frenchman.

Michael found his window to escape, a man stepping onto a small stage set up at the front of the ballroom and calling everyone’s attention. Handing his glass of wine off to Weiss he excused himself and headed toward the bathrooms at the back end of the villa. The guard standing near the entrance merely nodded in greeting as the green-eyed man flashed a smile and continued past.

Access to the off-stage areas was easy and the items were prepped on several ornate and heavy wooden tables. Peeking around and seeing no physical presence he did, however, note three or four added security cameras around the room focusing on the artifacts. 

Reaching up to straighten his tie, he pressed the small button behind the knot that turned on the high-resolution camera. While things didn’t usually stay as easy as they seemed, he was pretty hopeful that this was going to work out perfectly. Gripping his hands behind his back he leaned forward, making sure the cameras could see that he was just looking - just inspecting. 

Sydney’s voice chimed into his ear from her spot a few miles out in the tactical van, “camera is good,” _click-clack_ , “the first images are coming through now.”

She studied the items closely, recognizing two while two others were something new. “The corroded one on the left, ignore it. That’s the music box from the ice cave,” she ordered, Vaughn taking a moment to finish his once-over of the artifact before turning to study a manuscript page between it and the strange invention to the right. 

“I don’t recognize that page. Give me four seconds and scan top to bottom.”

Vaughn complied, repeating the process for anything on the table she said she didn’t recognize.

Kendall watched the multiple screens in the ops center, nodding in satisfaction. “Good work team, now get out of there. Vaughn and Weiss, I expect a report before you land tomorrow. Bristow, make sure you print those high-resolution photos and get them to us. Keep studying and see if you recognize anything uniquely Rambaldi. We’ll see you in a couple of days.”

**…**

The blare of a car horn outside the hotel jarred Vaughn from a deep sleep, a rumble in his chest as he tried to remember where he was. The bedside clock read 19:30, and his heart and stomach switched places as he realized he'd missed his flight out of London.

"Damnit!" Throwing off the blankets he turned on the lamp and tried to shake the sleep away. 

"Weiss, wake up." When his friend didn't answer he turned and found the second bed empty and made, the other agent's bags gone. "What the hell?"

A piece of scrap paper with scrawled handwriting caught his attention next to the light and alarm clock.

_Oh no! You missed your flight! I have no idea how that happened (sarcasm)_

_Take a taxi and circle the block. Get dropped off at the staff entrance. Take the back elevators to the 3rd floor. Room 347._

_Your new flight is at 1 am. Don't miss it...this excuse won't work a second time._

_-W_

His guts instantly filled with butterflies that were a moment later crushed one by one, and while he owed Weiss his thanks, he couldn't do it. He and Sydney had agreed a week and a half ago that an occasional kiss in the corner of the warehouse was all they'd give themselves until the Alliance wasn't a threat. So he’d spent a miserable week and a half seeing her once at the briefing and then nothing as they had no interaction in London whatsoever.

They were dating with big air quotes around the word dating. Sighing and dropping his head into his hand, he tossed the note back onto the nightstand and got up, heading into the bathroom.

Flipping on the light, he saw another note taped to the mirror.

_For your information, this was difficult to set up. Don't talk yourself out of it because you and Syd made a pact or some shit._

On the counter was a red velvet jacket, complete with a name tag attached: _Steve_. The logo for Sydney's hotel was prominent on the rectangular piece of plastic.

"Weiss," he grumbled, shaking his head. He picked the coat up and heard a clatter as a small piece of tech fell out of the folded fabric into the sink, along with another note folded into a tiny cube.

Unfolding it with an annoyed growl:

_Okay. I had more fun with this than I probably should have, but the mission was too easy and I get bored when things go right._

_This is a bug-killer. Turn it on before you leave and it'll go until the battery dies. Like 15 hours. Which...if you can go 15 hours, you'll be expected to teach me your ways when you get home._

Vaughn sighed, his hands leaning against the counter as he pushed down the ball of excitement in his fluttering chest.

_'A cold shower. That's what I need.'_

Turning around, he spotted red on the sliding glass door. Rubbing his finger across a small part he recognized it as, "lipstick?"

_If you haven't figured it out yet, I'm not that willing or honestly smart enough to do all of this by myself, and this shade of red doesn't work for me. And she is very mad that I've used 90% of this tube of probably expensive lipstick to write much too long of a message on the shower door. Well...she will be when she gets it back. Also, housekeeping is gonna be pissed._

A long red line tipped with an arrow pointed to the small ledge inside the shower door where the tube waited for him to find it. He realized that his heart was beating hard and fast and that ball of excitement was wedging it's way back up to his throat.

_'Sydney helped set this up? But...she...we…'_

Checking his watch, he saw it was almost 8 pm, and he would have to be at the airport by midnight to get on his flight. That would really only give them a few hours.

 _'And? It's better than five minutes in the warehouse corner!'_ He wasn't sure which part of his brain was the horny thirty-something, but it was currently the only voice lending anything to his predicament.

_'Sydney helped set this up. She did this for a reason. What if she's been over there waiting in that red dress, and you've been sleeping!?'_

"Okay then," he decided, quickly dressing, throwing things into his bag, and grabbing the coat, bug-killer, and ruined tube of lipstick, he double-checked the room for things he didn't want left behind.

Pocketing his wallet and phone, he switched the device on and made his way into the hallway with the carry-on. Forcing himself to walk slow and casual, he headed down to reception and turned in his room key, checking out. A taxi was parked out front, Vaughn giving him instructions to take him up the street a few blocks away and drop him off at a cafe. The driver gave him a curious look that asked why he needed a cab for a distance that could be walked in five minutes, but the man shrugged and left the front of the hotel with his passenger.

The second cabbie was equally as confused, Vaughn donning the red coat of hospitality staff yet carrying luggage. Again, they didn't ask, merely agreeing to take the man three blocks to his hotel, the staff lot empty save for two vehicles. Two service workers were smoking in the back on a covered landing, the drizzle wetting Michael's face as he stepped out from the cab, paid and tipped the driver, and made his way into the staff entrance.

Finally getting to the elevator, he had gotten out of three duties assigned from supervisors by claiming that a cabbie had dropped off someone's luggage that they'd left behind. Not one follow-up question was launched.

"Get it to their room and then get back down here."

His stomach was a mass of excited energy, the numbers lighting up on the panel as the lift rose.

1

2

3

Ding

The doors opened, and Vaughn straightened his velvet coat and stepped onto the plush and padded carpet. A woman with a heavy suitcase was leaving her room in the direction he needed, and he gave her a nod and let her go first. He wanted to create distance and buy time until the hallway was empty, but the woman was taking forever trying to pull the oversized luggage as well as search through her huge purse for something. So, he stopped in front of a random door a few away from Sydney’s, and knocked. 

A gruff man opened after a moment, bleary and bloodshot eyes glaring into the brightly lit hallway from the dark recess of the room.

"I'm so sorry, but you left your bag, was it?" Adopting what he thought was a well-crafted British accent, the man snarled with a grumble and slammed the door in his face. Looking at the blank scrap of paper in his hand and moved down the hall, the gold numbers 347 shining in the light. Looking left and right, he noted that the camera at the end of the hallway no longer had a red light, the bug-killer working perfectly. The woman was also nowhere to be seen and the hallway was empty.

He knocked, semi-confident but not knowing what to expect. As the door opened, he spotted soft eyes and a warm smile, one of her camisoles twisted around her waist and a pair of incredibly short shorts on her hips. Her hair was a loose chocolate wave sweeping over her back and her legs were long, tan, and bare.

"You're late," she mumbled behind a whisper.

"Apologies, miss," he chuckled, stepping into the room. Crossing his arms over his chest after locking the door behind him, he focused a smirking curious look in her direction."What happened to, 'it's too risky, isn't worth it, and we should know better'?" 

They stared at one another for a few seconds, Sydney shrugging, "If there are times we _can_...shouldn’t we?"

"Part of your plan should have been Weiss setting an alarm - I could have been here hours ago." He unfolded his arms and shrugged out of the hot, scratchy jacket, tossing it to a chair a few feet away. Their eyes didn’t part as he loosened the tie and cast it on top of the red velvet, and he saw the purple seeping into the center as he began to undo his oxford.

It had been a month - a very long month filled with pent up desires and emotions, but for whatever reason, she didn’t want to rush. She set out to memorize every single inch of his tan chest being slowly exposed. Her eyes took in the deft and practiced motion of each button released from the tiny slit in the fabric, sweeping across the muscles beneath as he shrugged the shirt off and it joined the growing pile on the chair.

“Are you just gonna watch? Because that’s not how I’m used to doing this,” he echoed her comment from the cabin, the dimpled smile hitting her cheeks as she bit her lower, smiling lip. Stepping forward until her hands touched his warm skin, she slid up his pecs to his shoulders, one wrapping around to cling at his shoulder blade as the other dove up into the hair at the nape of his neck, he felt a shiver ripple across his skin as warmth radiated outward from her hands.

His arms slid under hers as she claimed his upper body and he, her lower, wrapping around her completely and burying his face into the crook of her neck and shoulder. 

"When do you have to leave?" Her words were a hint of a whisper.

"Shhh," he ordered softly, peppering kisses to the perfumed skin. She tucked her nose into his throat with a sweet sigh and closed her eyes.

His mouth continued the journey to the side of her neck, Sydney sinking into the familiar feeling of being held and the flutter in her lower stomach. His hands slid around her waist and down her hips before skimming her backside and settling at the top of her thighs. 

"C'mere," he mumbled against the pulse point while gripping with his hands, Sydney getting the cue and clung to his shoulders, lifted her legs, and hooked them over his hips. Toddling over to the bed he leaned forward until she felt the cool, rumpled comforter behind her back.

Releasing his shoulders her hands cupped his jaw pulling their mouths together, the kiss sensual and slow as her tongue caressed his reorienting herself to the taste and feel of being with him. They paused for a second, foreheads pressed together and breath mixing, her legs still around his waist as his hands propped himself up to the right and left of her sides. The suddenness of the flames erupting in her stomach settled between her legs as a pulse beating in time with her heart, and she realized that as much as she was enjoying taking things slow, her body was staging a mutiny against her heart.

“We have...we have time for more than once, right?” Her words were rushed and breathy, his avid nod bouncing the tip of his nose against hers.

“Plenty,” he replied as his lips hungrily claimed hers.

Pulling apart with a gasping smack, Vaughn rose with his hands already undoing his belt as Sydney sat up and quickly lifted the hem of her shirt until it was tossed somewhere behind her. His hungry green eyes sparkled in the low light as his ran them from her pouted lips, across her perky breasts, and down her toned abdomen until it stopped at the shorts.

Reaching and hauling her up, his hands were at the hem as hers tackled his tented trouser button and zipper, the belt already hanging to the sides. Sydney laughed as his pants hit the floor, her shorts following a moment later until he lifted her by her hips and pulled their bodies together. She quickly wrapped her legs back around his waist and his hands gripped her thighs to hold her up, Michael tilting forward landing them back on the bed. 

He needed to be inside her more than he needed his next breath, and the way her lower stomach was pushing up against his straining erection, she felt the same. Her hand reached between them as their mouths locked once more, fingers wrapping around his hardness and pointing him at her moist center. In a long smooth stroke he was in to the hilt and held still, his eyes closed as a shuddering breath squeezed out from his chest.

Sydney pressed a kiss against his dimpled chin with a smile. “Michael, we can go slow later.”

He groaned and pulled his hips back for another long, quick thrust. “God I love it when you call me Michael.”

Their pace was hurried and hands seemed to be everywhere at once. Sydney felt the boiling low in her stomach catch fire as she came moaning into his mouth. The tightness of her contractions brought stars to his eyes, and though he wanted to see how many times he could make her shudder around him, he wasn’t going to last any longer. He followed just behind her with a groan fanning hot air against her throat.

Their overheated bodies trembled, her fingernails loosening from the dug in crescents in his shoulder blades, his hands planted to the left and right of her body. Pushing his torso up she kept his lower half close with her arms and still wrapped legs. 

The growling of his stomach broke the mood, the two sharing a laugh as he stood, slipping from her warmth, and pulling her up. As she moved to the bathroom he grabbed his boxers and slid them on before moving to the nightstand and lifting the room service menu.

"Well, I can't take you out, but I can bring dinner here. Fancy or junk food?" He asked flipping the menu about reading the options.

Two hours after having a mix of good and bad-for-you food, and another round of mind-blowing sex, Vaughn rested against the headboard with Sydney tucked into his side, the sheet draped up to their waists. Her hand rested against his chest feeling the steady beat of his heart beneath her palm, her head on his shoulder and his hand rubbing random patterns against her side.

They’d set out to finish the conversation from their terrible date in Nice and learn those little elusive things about one another everything dating couple should know.

So far, the questions hadn’t gotten too deep, but Vaughn was beginning to prod a bit. “What’s your biggest fear?”

He felt her body tense a bit, though she didn’t speak up. Peeking down he saw the frown on her forehead as her wide eyes blinked a few times. 

“I honestly don’t know how to answer the question,” she admitted quietly.

“What? Why not?”

She shrugged, his pointer finger swirling the crown of her shoulder as it moved up and down. “It’s different every day, Vaughn.”

“How can your greatest fear be different every day?” He didn’t think it was that hard of a question, but he wanted to push a bit and see where she ended up.

She sighed, and in that sigh he heard a myriad of emotions. “I mean...a couple of months ago it was that my father was KGB. But...then it was my mother being alive and then a criminal, and then a walk-in, and everything surrounding all...all of that.”

He suddenly realized what she meant by ‘different every day’ and that he’d accidentally kicked a hornet’s nest.

“I genuinely thought you were going to assign someone else to be my handler when we learned the truth about my mother. So...for those few days, _that_ was the fear. And when that didn’t happen, it just got replaced by something else.”

“Like what?” Pressing a kiss to the top of her head, he was excited that she was letting him into her soul a bit, but also a bit scared of what he might learn.

“If things had gone differently with Will, I would have lost him, and if Francie ever figures out that I don’t work at a bank, I’ll lose _her_ . And...if you’d drowned behind that door in Taipei, I would have lost _you_. I,” she paused, taking a deep breath in a stalling attempt to articulate for the first time out loud what had truly been her fear over the last couple of months. “I’m terrified of losing more people that I love to this job. I can’t quit, I’m just...stuck, and it’s a risk to everyone around me and I hate it.”

“Wow...I,” he stuttered, searching for a response. “I mean...I was thinking like, spiders? Clowns?” He cast a sideways smile peering down, the frown on her forehead juxtaposed with the smile on her lips.

“Damnit, Vaughn,” she growled, the hand over his palm slapping his skin with a smack.

Feigning injury he leaned in and pressed a soft kiss to her mouth, cupping her cheek. “Look, seriously - I’m not going anywhere.”

“You don’t get to decide that,” she reminded ruefully, Vaughn losing some of his bravado though his response was to brush his thumb against her cheekbone.

“It’s your turn,” she whispered.

“Bees.”

“Huh-uh,” she shook her head, “ _greatest_ fear.”

“Have you ever seen a bee? They’re terrifying,” he admitted, suddenly not wanting to share and hoping she’d let him off the hook. 

“Michael,” she growled, her eyes serious.

He paused, stalling for a few moments. “My current greatest fear?” At her nod, “is losing you.”

“Me?”

“You go to work in the morning and...every day there’s a chance I’ll never see you again. And if something were to happen, I’d never get to say goodbye, and I may not even know in time to prevent anything.” he swallowed against the emotion rising in his chest. “I wasn’t kidding when I said you were all I think of every day, Sydney, and part of that daily thought process is what I’d do if you never came home from one of your missions.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” she stated.

“You don’t get to decide that,” he repeated, the worry lines on his forehead reappearing despite having been missing in action for two, blissful hours.

“Maybe you shouldn’t have gone so deep,” she mumbled settling her head back to his shoulder and staring off at the ugly flower painting across the room.

A half-grin split his lips, “that’s the first time you’ve said that to me in bed.”

She laughed, “out of two times? Yikes.”

“Well, out of two beds,” he corrected, turning his head to peek at the alarm clock on the nightstand. It was just after 11:30, Sydney catching his gaze.

“You never did tell me when you had to leave,” she reminded.

“Yeah,” he muttered, looking back down and seeing the soft resolved smile on her face.

“You gotta go now,” spoken more as a statement than a question, he replied by nodding. “That’s okay. Some time is better than no time.”

They rose and dressed slowly, Sydney walking him to the door as he slid on the scratchy bellhop jacket, luggage in hand.

“I’ll see you back in L.A.,” she whispered, Vaughn leaning in for another kiss that left her breathless.

“Love you,” he mumbled against her mouth, her smile breaking their lips apart, Michael checking the small device before leaving.

**…**


	7. Compromised

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [](https://www.flickr.com/photos/190971129@N06/50576534488/in/dateposted/)  
> 

The airport was bustling, Sydney shouldering her way through the crowds with the smaller rolling carry-on pulled behind. The extra two days away from work had been rather nice, though her mind slipped back to the time spent with Vaughn before he headed home. A dimpled smile hit her cheeks, the distraction causing her to run headlong into someone.

Uttering a breathless apology, the man doing the same, she looked away intending to continue toward her gate when he cleared his throat and gently touched her arm. She gave him a cautious once-over spotting a black suit and tie, crisp white button-up beneath, and shining blue eyes. He checked a piece of paper in his hand as if confirming something before nodding and speaking.

"I waved, but you seemed to be lost in thought," he laughed, a badge in a leather holder discreetly in one palm catching her attention. Sydney kept the smile plastered on her face and recognized the MI5 symbol. His voice had an Irish lilt to it, and she took a moment to see that the photo matched the man standing before her.

"Can I help you?" She decided a simple question would suffice.

"We need to ask you a few questions about your suitcase before it's loaded onto the plane. It was flagged by customs and we need to clarify the contents."

It was the code phrase she'd been taught when starting as a double with the CIA, a way for the agency to stop her before traveling if something was wrong. This meant that something was wrong. Warning bells rang in her head along with that critical Bristow voice, _‘if you weren’t so busy thinking about Vaughn you would have been more aware; you would have seen the man standing there.’_

"Of course, was it both suitcases or just one?" She sent the confirmation response, seeing him smile and nod, his hand tucking away the leather I.D. wallet.

“Just one, but we grabbed them both so the other wouldn’t get lost,” he replied, the right words making her a fraction more at ease. Sydney smiled and nodded, the man turning and assuming she was following toward the side of the busy terminal.

The man held his hand out directing her behind a set of stanchions barricading a door, a sign reading AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. They made their way through, Sydney hyper-focused as she watched the angles of the hallway and checked the corners of other closed doorways for any movement. This guy knew the phrase that was supposed to put her at ease, but she didn’t feel as such and hoped that fact wasn’t acutely visible on every feature of her face.

Any number of things could happen once they reached an out of the way location. She felt adrenaline course through her veins, her body going on autopilot as every muscle tensed, prepared for a fight. The thought of being compromised floated through her head.

 _‘Why else would the CIA have sent someone? This was the protocol for a worst-case scenario, you know that.’_

Another fearful thought invaded her mind, a drop of heavy worry hitting her stomach. Wherever they were headed, whatever safe room in this hallway was away from prying Alliance eyes and ears, there could be a waiting CIA liaison and a WitSec officer with a briefcase full of papers. Among those papers would be a new identity and witness protection information, and her small suitcase with a pair of dress pants, two pairs of jeans, another work shirt, and two long-sleeved shirts stuffed around some pajamas would be all she had to start a new life somewhere.

By herself.

No Will; no Francie; no father; no Vaughn. No job, no nothing.

Her mind lingered on this last thought until the man leading the way stopped at the only open door in the long hallway. “We can talk in here - no eyes and ears around.” Inside the drab room stood two other agents wearing similar suits, one blue and the other grey.

"Ah, Agent Bristow," a hand shot out as the shorter of the three in the blue suit introduced himself with a cockney accent, his brown eyes twinkling. "I'm Agent Derrick and this is Agent Paulson; Agent Briggs was your escort from the terminal. We're with MI-5," he explained without explaining.

"May I ask why I’m here?" They directed her to have a seat with open and welcoming body language, their stance friendly and unthreatening. They sat with her in the available chairs around an old wooden table.

Agent Derrick took the lead, "we need your help and expertise. An artifact made by the inventor Milo Rambaldi was stolen last night."

She frowned, genuinely surprised by this fact. "Really? I wasn't aware that MI-5 was researching Rambaldi’s works, though, that's a bit above my pay grade," she chuckled, sending a disarming smile.

Agent Derrick chuckled, "when the director of your field office said that not only his best agent but also the agent that knows the most about Rambaldi was in town, we asked permission to meet with you on your way back and see if we could convince you to stay a few extra days."

 _‘Bullshit - Kendall called me his_ **_best_ ** _agent?’_ The heavy worry sinking in her stomach grew.

"I could request it," she started, grey-suited Agent Paulson spoke with a thick Scottish accent, his hand waving her off.

"Our director talked to yours an hour ago, so if you're game, we'd love to have you as part of the team for a few days."

_‘Protocol dictates they contact me on my CIA issued cell. There’s no way Kendall would okay this without giving me the order himself.'_

"Look, I'm not new at this. You wouldn't mind if I confirmed this with the office on my own, would you? If the boss is expecting me and I don't show up, the last thing I need is for them to panic and send a rescue team."

They seemed to buy her excuse, her black-suited escort settling down in a chair with a smile and nod hiding nothing in his expression, "of course, Agent Bristow."

They agreed but didn't step away, indicating that it also wasn't their first day on the job. She pulled the cell from the back pocket of her jeans and dialed the familiar number.

The agents in the room had no idea she wasn’t calling the CIA field office - in fact, she was counting on that fact. Kendall wasn’t going to be able to tell her what was going on, that much she knew, and in an instant, her fingers instead dialed the director of SD-6. 

_‘You know that it doesn’t matter which director you call. You’re screwed.’_ The voice in her head changed from that of her father beginning to sound more like the painful drone of her boss, her mind confirming it as the man answered the call.

"Sydney; hello." Sloane’s tone was forced and she could hear the stress behind his short statement. Truthfully, this was why she had called. One advantage of her familiarity with Sloane was knowing the underlying emotion behind everything he said. The closeness of their past relationship and the perceived closeness he thought they still shared made him easy for her to read, even over the phone. 

"Good morning. I’m sorry, I know it’s early back home, but I wanted to clarify my next assignment with you. With MI-5?”

He sighed and she could hear papers shuffle around before he spoke. Despite the fact that it was around five in the morning in L.A., he was at a desk, probably his home office, which meant that whatever they were saying was most likely being monitored by her CIA team because of the bug she'd planted. “Of course. The director of MI-5 asked me for assistance and I offered your services.” There was a pause, and she heard his chair creak a bit as he moved around.

Her blood ran cold in her veins. This wasn’t a CIA operation, and Sloane just confirmed it.

 _‘Shit. I_ **_am_ ** _screwed.’_ That voice was her own. She did her best to keep the color from draining in her face and put on a smile.

“I’m happy to help, though if I’m being honest, I don’t think I can do much. There have to be other people that have actual Rambaldi expertise.”

The men in the room shared glances back and forth checking their watches as they waited for her to finish the call.

“No,” The fierceness in his sudden barked command made her frown. “You’re the closest agent we have to assist and you’ve seen more artifacts than anyone else. What others would miss, you could easily spot. It’s...why you’re the best. When they notified me, I knew this was something only you could do.” Another sigh, Sydney rolling her eyes faking annoyance as her hand puppeted _‘they never stop talking’_.

Arvin Sloane sounded...sad. He sounded dejected and distracted, and she heard a few more papers shuffle between his hands before he sighed again.

“Well, I could take a few extra days if you can spare me, especially since I’m already here. That was lucky, wasn’t it?” Sure it was a prick to an already bleeding wound but screw him. He was having her killed. She may as well twist the knife a little.

“You’ve always been right where we needed you. I told them you...were my best. I apologize for the distraction, it’s early here and I’ve not slept much. I’ll...see you in a few days, yes?”

“Yes, sir.” Pulling the phone away from her ear she stared at it for a second, her mind keeping the small smile on her lips though inside she felt anger and betrayal. Despite what he'd done to her in the last few years, he’d taken very good care of her in the past. Apparently, that had ended. It didn’t explain how they knew her CIA passphrase, that was something she’d need to figure out later. For now: she’d been made and there was nothing she could to about it. 

Could she take the three agents? Possibly, but knowing how the Alliance did business, that could backfire. They would have sent more, probably half a dozen in plainclothes outside in the terminal. If she left without her escorts it could cause a major problem. While the Alliance didn’t much care about collateral damage and would happily fire bullets into a crowd of innocent people in an effort to stop her escape, Sydney Bristow wasn’t. There’s no way she’d take that risk. She’d have to get clear another way if another option presented itself. 

_‘And if it doesn’t?’_ The Bristow voice was back.

 _‘I had a good run,_ ’ she answered, surprising herself.

Realizing that there wasn’t any way out of it made her calmer than she thought it would. She’d already set things up with the CIA in the event that she was compromised, and all she had to do was call Vaughn and make sure he knew exactly what she was saying, all while keeping the three agents with her in the dark about her notifying the agency about her status. That would set into motion the Dixon family extraction and Will and Francie being taken into protective custody, and hopefully, it would be early enough that he could contact her father before he left for the office. 

Vaughn’s voice bounced around in her head, all of this and more going through her mind in the time it took her phone to leave her ear and come back down for her eyes to focus on the screen.

 _"Sydney, what about_ **_you_ ** _?"_

_She scoffed, "you and I both know that if the Alliance makes me, I'm dead. I just...I have to know that they’re okay if something happens. Can you get it approved?"_

_Vaughn furrowed his brow from the small crappy chair in the bloodmobile, his new Agent standing before him with hopeful but serious eyes._

_"I'll get something in writing and you can review it at our next meet."_

_Sydney thanked him and put the backpack over her shoulders, ready to head back to class when she stopped at the door with her hand on the latch. "I mean...you know...if you do find a way to not let them horribly murder me," pausing, she flashed a dimpled grin, "explore the option."_

Punching in the number she had memorized, she turned that flashing smile back on the agents hoping none of her internal dialogue was written across her features. “One more call, and then I'm yours. If I don’t ask my boyfriend to walk the dog I’ll have a hell of a mess to come home to,” she muttered, the black-suited Agent Briggs looking at his watch.

“We have to get across town in less than an hour, let’s do make it short, yeah?”

“I can talk as I walk if you have a car ready.” This was the information that relaxed all three of the men in the room. Sydney saw their tense shoulders drop, noticing for the first time how tense they had been. In their minds, everything had worked perfectly and the woman before them was blissfully unaware of the harsh truth of her situation. She wasn’t going to fight back, she was going to walk out the front door with them. Standing, she gathered her purse as Agent Paulson in the blue suit fisted the handle of her carry-on wearing a relieved polite smile.

They led the way from the room and back into the main terminal, the Agent in the grey suit holding the door and letting her pass as he fell into step behind them with Sydney in the middle. Dialing Vaughn and setting the now ringing phone against her ear, a seed of sadness buried into her heart as she realized that she wasn’t going to see him again. 

Pushing it down she heard the click as he picked up, his voice already going instead of giving a greeting. “I was just about to call you. I’m in a meeting with your father and Kendall and they just told me that the artifact we photographed two days ago was taken last night. That...that wasn’t you, was it?”

It was a load off her mind that her father was already at the JTF where he’d be safe.

“Hey Michael, sorry to call so early.” 

"What?" The hairs on Vaughn's neck stood at attention, and he held his hand up and cut Jack and Kendall off mid-conversation.

"Mr. Vaughn, this had better-" 

"Shh!" Growling, the young Agent switched to speakerphone. "Syd?"

She rolled her eyes sending the Agent next to her an acted knowing smile. "Michael, you awake?"

She'd only used his first name a few times before this conversation, that he was aware of, each time warming his heart. Now, though, he hated it. She'd used it just to get his attention. "You’ve got my attention. What is going on?"

She was slightly out of breath, their fast clip heading to the exit of the airport signaling that she didn't have much time to talk. The moment she hit the vehicle, that was it. This was her last chance to tell him what was happening - maybe even to talk with him at all.

"I know that you were going pick me up tonight, but the bank called and one of our loans in London just went belly-up. Since I'm already here, you can guess who got the job. Could you take care of the dog for a couple more days?"

Vaughn's eyes met Jack's, the blood rushing from his brain to his heart as he realized what she was saying. The conversation during one of their first few meetings rattled around in his head, Sydney making him roll his eyes when she’d said, _“Look, if I’m made I’ll just pretend you’re my boyfriend. If they even give me a phone call you’ll at least know right away that something’s up.”_

"Sydney...are you compromised?" Her father's usually stoic and steady voice had a tremor, she could hear it in the tone and knew Vaughn had put her on speaker.

_‘Good boy.’_

"Yeah," she sighed and paused, letting the confirmation hang in the air. "I promise, it's just a couple more days. Make sure you reschedule tomorrow’s dinner with Marcus, Will, and Francie."

Swallowing past the tightening in his throat, Vaughn knew what she needed him to say. "They'll…I'll get them out. I promise."

"Okay. I'll see you in a few days. I love you," she tossed it out hoping that both of the men in her life knew who it was for.

The damp, chilly air hit her as the sliding doors opened, a black limousine waiting with a large, bald man standing guard beside the rear door. He opened it, Sydney feeling the phone pulled from her hand as one of the agents met her eyes, his smile gone and a wave of serious contempt across his once chipper expression.

"Miss. Bristow? If you don't mind," the guard held open the door for her and beckoned with a booming voice to accompany the massive frame, and she took a deep breath before sliding into the darkened interior.

Her eyes adjusted and spotted a man sitting across. Sydney recognized his face from information Vaughn had shared with her at the beginning, but it did genuinely surprise her to see the director of SD-9 sitting across the limo. 

_‘Isn’t he supposed to be dead? Poole, wasn’t it?’_

“Do you know why you are here, Miss. Bristow?”   
  
Sandwiching her in the middle, two of the three agents that had intercepted her at the airport slid in on either side as the hulk of a bodyguard moved to sit beside Poole.

“I’m putting it all together,” she said making full eye contact with the well-dressed British man seated opposite. Next to his giant bodyguard, he looked tiny, though the aura he oozed was one of extreme overconfidence and a suave attempt to emulate an evil James Bond.

“We don’t usually go through this pomp and circumstance with traitors, but Arvin convinced me that you dearly deserved to be punished for your betrayal. Secondary to that is the possibility of you sharing with us some details about your extracurricular activities. So...here you are.”

“Here I am,” she confirmed, her brown eyes boring into his.

Her brain was quick to process this new information, but she kept anything but a soft smile and relaxed eyes on the director of the London-based SD cell. Sloane had stopped the typical Alliance-style hit to have her tortured for information. This would have caused her to panic if she lived a normal life, but Sydney Bristow did not live a normal life. To her, it made a sick amount of sense. Sloane had given her the best chance he could of getting out of this, though it was slim to none and they both knew it. Regardless, he'd given her time and opportunity.

Well, not her: her father. Sloane had put all of his eggs in the Jack Bristow basket. His confidence wasn’t misplaced, he just didn’t know that the entirety of the L.A. Joint Task Force field office was also in on the game.

_‘Then again, maybe he did know. Maybe he does have a conscience.’_

All she had to do was survive the torture as long as possible, stall when needed, and only give nibbles of information to keep them interested. Maybe that would give the CIA enough time to figure out where they were taking her.

_‘Great. That...that sounds super fun.’_

“You know, Sydney - can I call you Sydney?”

“Sure.” She crossed one leg over the other attempting to come across as unaffected by his act. Mildly thankful that she was in semi-formal business attire, the button-up black blazer and sleek dress pants made her feel a little more powerful than if she was sitting there in a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt. She didn’t own any of the cards in this particular game and couldn’t buy in even if she wanted, but if he was going to play with _her_ , she would absolutely join him. After all - this ate up time, and time was everything she needed at the moment. 

They’d likely tossed her phone to the curb before leaving the airport, but the second cell in her purse, her SD-6 phone, could still be used to track her. She recalled the feeling of the bag being tossed against her leg but didn’t look to confirm, so there was a chance. If she was wrong, however, the office would be starting from scratch. They needed Marshall, but that probably wasn’t going to happen.

“You have an impressive file, both with SD-6 and with the CIA.”

_‘That’s how they knew the passphrase. There’s a mole somewhere.’_

“Thank you.”

The man chuckled. “I like you, Sydney. While you seem rock steady, I can’t wait to see what unsteadies you. I’ve never taken the time to get to know any agents outside of my Cell. Why would I? I’ve the best in The U.K. working within my walls. But you…” He paused, waggling his finger in her direction. “I must admit that I was upset Arvin hid you from the rest of us for so long. An agent like yourself is akin to a prized racehorse; something that is very hard to come by and costs a lot of money, but ends up being well worth the cost.”

Sydney rolled her eyes, “it’s every girl’s dream to be objectified as a racehorse.” The man next to her jabbed something into her ribs and she saw for the first time the gun in his hand.

“Play nice,” he ordered as she met his eyes with raised eyebrows. Turning to the man on her other side she noticed that he too had a gun trained on her, and a disarming dimpled smile hit her face before she set her attention back to the boss.

“I doubt you’ve ever been this scared of a racehorse.”

“Worth the price until you have to put it down, of course. You’re...well-known, so I’ll take no chances if you don’t mind.” He gestured to the men in the vehicle, Sydney realizing that they weren’t going to leave her much by way of time or opportunity to escape.

 _‘You know you can’t get out of this. This situation isn’t escapable. This is what they do; this is what they’re good at.’_ Oh, how she wished she could shut off the Bristow part of her brain, but it seemed it was here to stay.

She folded her hands in her lap over her crossed legs, her stance unthreatening and casual as she waited for him to make the next move. “I’m sitting here instead of the alternative, so you must have some other plan for this particular racehorse. Something other than a bullet, I imagine.”

The kempt man dusted at the front of his suit before fixing her with dark eyes, “You’ll have to wait for the surprise.”

She felt the needle jam into her neck and winced, the interior of the limousine blurring as she lost consciousness.

**…**


	8. Two Truths

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [](https://www.flickr.com/photos/190971129@N06/50577471762/in/dateposted/)

The JTF office was a sudden explosion of activity, the few people already there early given immediate tasks. The first was to follow the signal from Sydney's cell phone in an attempt to track her, two agents running off to different computer stations.

Jack was yelling at someone through the phone at the airport in an attempt to gain their security footage. The hope was that the cameras would give them a clear picture of what had happened to Sydney since she’d arrived at the airport and explain how she’d been compromised, or at least put a face to who she was with. It was undoubtedly Alliance, but if it wasn’t, they didn’t want to chase the wrong lead and waste valuable time their agent didn’t have. Apparently his yelling worked and he transferred the call over to the analysts to find the right footage and bring it to him as soon as possible.

Vaughn grabbed his coat off the chair and started toward the door, Jack’s voice calling to catch him. “Vaughn! Where are you going?” The two men hurried into the hallway, Michael not stopping as he made his way toward the stairway exit.

“We made an agreement with Sydney when she first started as a double. If she was compromised we would make sure that Dixon’s family, Will, and Francie were taken into protective custody.”

“Why pull Dixon? This is irrational. He could  _ help _ us from-” Jack wasn’t prepared for the young man to spin on his heel with his hand raised, watery green eyes showing that he was barely holding it together. 

“Stop. Not now. You do what you can here; I’ll coordinate the extractions and see that everyone is safe. I promised her...Jack. I promised Sydney I would do this.”

For a moment, Jack felt the constriction in his chest ebb long enough to see the broken heart of the man attempting to hold his emotions back. And even though he was still mad at the confrontation from weeks earlier, the father realized that he hadn’t restarted the conversation with the agent as previously intended, nor had he followed him to his car and put the occasional rogue in the trunk of his sedan as a lesson. The love Michael Vaughn had for his daughter poured from his pain-filled eyes, and Jack knew instantly why he hadn’t tried to nail him to the wall over the last few weeks.

“I can help-” the floundering father tried, Michael cutting him off.

“If you leave this building, you’re dead. They didn’t make her without making you, you know that.” Pushing his arms angrily through the holes in the jacket he turned and tossed the heavy metal door open, the cool of the parking garage interior hitting both sets of flushed faces.

“It doesn’t matter any longer; let me help.” Jack had a pleading tone that Vaughn hadn’t heard before. A van roared around the end of the turn, wheels squealing as it raced up and then made a sudden stop in front of the two agents. Weiss was driving and gestured for the younger to hurry.

“They can’t have both of you, I won’t give them that. Just,” pulling the sliding back door open he turned before stepping inside, his hind wiping angrily at a tear that was charting a path down his cheek, “just see if you can find her and put a plan together for extraction.”

The words bubbled up from the back of Jack’s throat before he could reign them in, “no one has ever survived this.”

Michael recognized that Jack was losing his edge, the adrenalin wearing off as the reality of the situation was crashing around the older man’s shoulders. “You giving up on her Jack?” He let the rhetorical question hang and slid the van door closed, the large, unmarked vehicle lurching forward.

**...**

“Who the hell could be at the door at five-thirty in the morning?” Francie curled farther into Will’s warm side in an attempt to shrink from the ringing bell, three loud pounding knocks following soon after.

Will sat up quickly and tossed the blanket to the end of the bed, his girlfriend eyeing him with confusion as he rose and clumsily yanked a pair of pajama pants over his boxers. “Stay here,” he ordered, hurrying from the room.

The moment he was through the doorway she huffed and grumbled, twisting out of bed and grabbing her robe that hung by the door. Stalking into the living room, Will back in her line of sight, she saw his stance tense and nervous, worry beginning to prod its way past her annoyance.

“What are you-” he cut her off.

“Shh,” he ordered sharply and approached the door at the hinged side, his glaring eyes and waving hand signaling for her to be quiet and stay back.

Another ring and three more bangs made them both jump, Will breathing nervously as he maneuvered on his tiptoes to peer through the peephole. A nervous Michael Vaughn stood on the step.

_ ‘Shit, this isn’t good.’ _

Despite knowing the person at the door, he didn’t relax. In fact, it wound him tighter and a growing knot began to twist his guts. Unlocking the door with fast, shaking hands, Francie whispered harshly, “what are you doing?! It could be a murderer!”

He ignored her and threw it wide before reaching out to yanking the surprised agent into the cool interior of the apartment by the front of his jacket. “What the  _ hell _ is going on? You shouldn’t  _ be  _ here!”

“Sydney’s been compromised,” Vaughn said quickly as Will locked the door behind them. 

The bright blue eyes went wide and every muscle in his body stopped and tensed. “What did you say?” His voice was almost a squeak.

“She,” Michael paused to take a breath and desperately try to push his emotions down. “She’s been compromised. I…I’m taking you both into protective custody.”

“What can I do? Can I help when I get there?"

“What the  _ hell _ is going on?!” Francie yelled over their conversation, the newcomer someone she’d never seen before and her boyfriend wasn’t offering any explanation but seemed to know the man quite well. “Who the hell  _ is this _ ? And...what did you say about Sydney? Is...are you a cop? Has she been in an accident?”

For the moment, the young panicked woman took a backseat as Will attempted to process what he was told. He felt Vaughn’s hand on his shoulder as he hung his head and took a shuddering breath. Standing up straight he saw the sheen of tears in the green eyes knowing that his blues matched. His mind slipped back to when this part of her life was brand new to him, Sydney explaining what this exact situation meant.

_ “What the hell do you mean by compromised? Like what, like...found out?” _

_ “Yeah, like found out.” _

_ “So wait. If...if they figure out that you're a double agent, you’re telling me that Francie and I are on a list? And the CIA will just show up and drag us off somewhere?” He talked with his mouth full of cereal as he watched Sydney get her things ready for work one morning shortly after he’d learned the whole ugly truth. “I actually know what that feels like.” _

_ She sighed and stopped, looking toward the sound of the running shower from Francie’s room. “You and I, better than anyone else, know what these people can do. If I’m caught as a double I’m dead, there’s no way around that.” _

_ “Does Jack know about this whole list thing?” _

_ “I have a different arrangement with my dad, but Vaughn helped me get things in place for you and Francie, and Dixon and his family. The CIA will take you all into protective custody - past that, I don’t know what would happen. Maybe witness protection,” she left off shouldering her purse and headed for the front door. _

_ “So, compromised equals bad.” _

_ “Yeah.” _

_ “Bad for Francie and me?” _

_ She shook her head from across the living room, “probably not.” _

_ “But really bad for you?” _

_ She sent a soft smile, “Will, I’ve been a spy for almost ten years, and the last eighteen months I've been a double spy. Yet this whole time you and Francie thought I worked at a bank, so...I'm pretty good at my job. Don't worry.” _

“Fran, go get dressed,” he swallowed hard, “and pack a bag.” He tried to make his voice sound big, but the tightening of his throat made it higher-pitched and watery.

“What? No! You will tell me what is going on. Right now!” Her arms were crossed and her hips set to allow the tapping of her foot on the ground. Vaughn and Will shared understanding glances, Michael stepping forward and extending his hand in greeting.

“Francie, I’m Michael Vaughn. I...I work with Sydney.”

The ebony woman lightened her glare at the recognition of his first name. “You...your name is Michael?”

“Look - there’s going to be a lot that you don’t understand in the next few hours, and there’s going to be plenty I can’t tell you. Just know that Sydney set this up if - if something happened to her at work.”

“At the bank? Like what...like a robbery?” She gasped, “oh god...was she embezzling money? Did...did she lead like, a second life or something?”

“Francie,” Vaughn sighed, “Sydney doesn't work at a bank, she works for the CIA.”

The woman’s face fell before she flashed a laughing smile. “Come on, be serious.”

Will and Vaughn felt some of their urgency dissipate, the boyfriend taking over. “Look, we’ll fill you in, I - I promise, but we have to pack and we gotta do it now. Trust me, Fran, you have no idea how much of a risk it is having this guy even near the apartment, let alone inside.”

The couple moved hurriedly down the hall leaving Vaughn in the living room. He looked around with the realization that this was the first and probably last time he’d ever see it, so he set out to memorize every detail. The pictures of her and her friends on the mantle, the copy of her Master’s degree hanging on the wall, the scented candles on the end table next to the couch. He turned and spotted a second bedroom, and while his brain was trying to decide if he would look, his legs were already moving. 

The comfortable-looking bed was made, pillows across the top haphazardly skewed as if she’d only had time to yank the blankets in place and toss them near the headboard. Moving past the doorframe he spotted a chair near the corner of the room that had a few pieces of clothing slung over the back and a pair of heels kicked underneath. The recognizable scent of her perfume hit him as he moved just inside the door, and it forced his eyes closed at the memory of his nose tucked against her throat in their few hours together before his flight just two days ago.

Pain and guilt bubbled up as everything threatened to break inward for the tenth time that morning, so he took and released a ragged breath before leaving. Will was fidgeting in the living room with harsh worry on his face as he slipped a jacket over his rumpled shirt.

“Is it as bad as she said it would be?”

Vaughn wiped at his face sucking in another breath before shrugging. “I don’t know. Can...can I ask you something, Will?”

“Of course, man.” The blue-eyed man looked back over at the bedroom where Francie was still throwing things into a suitcase, though his eyes watered when they returned to the broken-hearted expression on the face of Michael Vaughn.

“What if this was me?” His voice had a shake to it as he finally said out loud the words threatening to suffocate his heart.

“What are you talking about?”

Michael set his hands to his chest, “what if...I mean...we started...what if they found out?”

“They would have you too, man. Don’t think you’d get away and she wouldn’t.” The journalist had sympathy written in every feature. “Vaughn, come on. This wasn’t you.  _ They _ are doing this. Sydney told me that  _ they _ do things like this, not us.”

“But-”

“And even if they found out,” his voice went to a whisper, Will checking back at Francie’s bedroom door before looking back at the agent in crisis, “To Syd...it was worth it.”

Francie slowly and unsurely made her way back into the living room with tear-stained cheeks and a carry-on bag packed to the brim slung over her shoulder. “I...I’m ready, I guess.” She hadn’t been sure if the new guy in the living room had been Sydney’s work fling, but seeing how crushed he looked and the obvious sheen of fresh tears in his eyes, it was the only thing that made sense. Sydney wasn’t the only one that had it bad, and it showed. While she didn’t understand at all what was happening, she couldn’t keep the fierce throbbing pain out of her heart at the thought of never seeing her best friend again.

“Can you answer one question for me?” Her voice was a whisper.

Michael replied with a nod as they left the apartment. 

“Is Sydney okay?”

He wanted to lie more than ever but now wasn’t the time. “No, Francie. I don’t think she’s okay.”

**…**

Vaughn sat in the van preparing for the conversation he was about to have with Sydney's SD-6 partner. Will and Francie were in the back, each mind processing the information he’d shared on the drive across town. The shocked look on the woman’s face and the fact that she was literally unable to say anything as her brain went into information overdrive made him feel bad. This was Sydney’s best friend, and she just found out that she’d been lied to - for years.

“Mike. We’re...in a bit of a time crunch.” Weiss prodded gently, and Michael was thankful for the distraction.

"She was supposed to do this, Weiss. This wasn’t supposed to be on me," he said in a low watery mumble.

Eric nodded. "I know, man. Look," the larger agent lowered his voice and leaned toward his crushed friend in the passenger seat. “Right now, we have a job that  _ has _ to get done, and we have to do it right. We can break later.”

Sighing and settling his mind, Vaughn pushed down his emotions and turned in his seat.

“I’ll be right back, you guys sit tight. Francie, I know things are super crazy right now, but I promise that I’ll answer every question you have later, okay?” Her mute nod was all he got, but it was enough.

His mind was a flurry as he walked the path up to the humble house. He knew so much about the man he was meeting while said man knew nothing about Michael Vaughn - not even his name.

He knocked three times, the door opening a moment later as  _ her _ partner greeted him with a frowning smile. He'd been briefed by Jack on the protocol and swallowed the sudden ball of guilt that bubbled to the back of his throat before putting a bright smile on his face.

"Marcus Dixon?"

"Yes," the man said warily. "Can I help you?"

"My name is Michael Vaughn, and I'm here from Credit Dauphine New York. I'm sorry to barge in on you this early, but I was told you handled the loans in and out of the L.A. branch and I need you to look at some paperwork if you have a minute or two."

Dixon smiled, his features relaxing completely before he stepped back and allowed Vaughn into his home. "Of course. My work laptop is in the office. Can I get you some coffee?"

_ ‘He trusts me completely. If...I was an assassin, I’d have him dead in two minutes and be in and out without anyone being the wiser. All because I knew a combination of words to put him off guard.  _ **_That’s_ ** _ how they got her. Sydney wouldn’t have followed just anyone into a back room, but...if they knew what to say,’ _ his train of thought was cut off at the question for coffee and it snapped him back to the present.

Michael declined as butterflies danced in his stomach, and he followed the man deeper into the house. Dixon closed the door behind them and sat at the desk, Vaughn taking the seat in front before reaching into his pocket to pull out a small piece of tech, a beep emitting as he pushed a button set it on the smooth and shining wood surface.

Marcus frowned as an alarm went off in his head, his jaw tensing quickly. “You’re not SD-6, are you?”

"Mr. Dixon, I need you to listen to me very carefully. I...some of the things I’m going to tell you are going to be very difficult to hear, but...I need you to hear them."

"Who are you?" Dixon's suspicion went sky high, his voice gaining an edge of aggression.

"I'm CIA.” 

The dark eyes narrowed. “Who sent you?”

Michael thought hard about the answer, deciding to go with an answer that may put him back into Dixon’s circle of trust. “Sydney sent me.”

His shoulders dropped a bit, though he didn’t fully relax. “Sydney?”

“Yes.”

It was enough for the moment and Marcus leaned back in his seat. “Tell me what you came to say."

“Trust that I wouldn’t be sitting here right now if it wasn’t for a good reason, and...trust that Sydney would be here if...she could." Michael let the pain hit his face and Dixon's frown came roaring back. "SD-6 is not CIA; it's not black ops. It's...it's a branch of the Alliance." Vaughn paused, letting the words sink in.

What he didn't expect was the sudden sharp laugh out of the man. "Bullshit. I'm calling Sydney," he growled and reached for the phone on his desk.

"She won't answer." He also didn't expect the ebony man's eyes to darken.

"That sounded like a threat." Vaughn hadn't heard the desk drawer open, nor did he see the hands moving slowly and methodically until the cocking of a hammer made him jump as his eyes darted down to the gun pointed in his direction. "No...Dixon-"

"Hands,” the agent ordered, Vaughn sticking them with palms open into the air. “Tell me why she won't answer if I hit this button," Marcus ordered, his other hand cradling the cell phone, Michael recognizing the number on the screen instantly.

"Here," the young agent said softly, his hands still raised though he reached slowly down into his jacket with his left. His gun was tucked firmly against his side in the holster, but that wasn't what he was going for. His fingers pulled out a leather flip case, tossing it to the desk and letting the suspicious man lift and open it, revealing is credentials.

He thought Dixon was calming down, but instead, the man's finger pressed the call button and he set the phone to his ear.

"For your sake, hope that she answers."

Vaughn felt his frustration rise as more time was wasted, the clock ticking away in his brain. He felt a burning need stab into his stomach to get back to the office and see if Jack had found anything new.

"She can't answer because  _ they _ have her.  _ That's  _ why I'm here." He felt his fingers tingle a bit as blood drained due to the upright position, but the gun was still trained squarely on his face and the hand that gripped the shiny firearm was unwaveringly steady.

The phone rang unanswered in his ear before going to voicemail, Marcus hanging up and setting it slowly on the desk.

"Since I have you here, you’re going to answer some questions for me," he growled. "We’ve known for some time that SD-6 had a mole-."

"I'm not the mole. I...I don't work for SD-6, I work for the  _ real  _ CIA.”

“If you say that  _ one _ more time,” the frustrated man growled, much Vaughn continued.

“Sydney is the mole. Your suspicions about her were right."

“What?” He looked like he’d been punched in the gut.

“They were right and...and she hated that they were right. She hated every single moment you doubted her loyalty. It...it drove her crazy.”

Michael saw the man’s face fall at the confirmation of some form of betrayal, but he wasn’t sure if it was about the job or about the man’s partner -  _ his _ partner. "Dixon, I need you to listen to me or you and your family could die."

"You're lying."

The hand holding the gun now had a slight shake to it, but Vaughn barreled on. "For the last 18 months, Sydney has been CIA. She worked with Jack inside the Alliance trying to bring them down. I'm not lying. Your suspicions were right, but she wasn't a bad guy, I promise,” he pleaded.

“You’re talking about her as if she’s gone. Tell me what’s happening.”

"Dixon, SD-6 is a branch of the Alliance, they're  _ not _ CIA. You have to believe me. I...I'll take you to our office and show you the evidence. You've been working  _ for _ the people you thought you were fighting." Vaughn began to lower his hands seeing the shocked reaction Marcus wore, his words the equivalent of a slap across the face.

The newly informed SD-6 agent steeled his emotions, retraining the slightly lowered gun on the man in the rumpled suit making sure his hands stayed where he could see them. "How did you know what to say when I opened the door."

"Jack told me the protocol."

Dixon's eyes bored into his soul as he searched deep for the truth, and Michael continued despite the fact that his arms were getting tired. He decided to hit the father-figure where it hurt. "I promised Sydney that if she was compromised I would get you and your family to safety. As her partner, she thought you would be considered expendable and that the Alliance wouldn’t believe that she’d done so much damage to them without help. She thought that...they wouldn’t believe Jack was in on it over her actual partner."

"You...Sydney isn't-" the dark-skinned man gulped shaking his head as the gun wobbled. "Mr. Vaughn, you're telling me that everything I've believed in for over eleven years has been a lie. I can’t...I can’t-"

"Every lower-level agent was lied to.  _ Is  _ lied to."

Marcus glowered, "Sydney was lied to?"

_ ‘Oh, more than you know.’  _ "Yes. She...after her fiance was killed...she learned the truth."

"How?"

"They tried to kill her.” He was surprised by the shock that hit Dixon’s face. “Jack saved her life and...told her the truth.”

Dixon scoffed. "Jack recruited me into SD-6. You're telling me that he lied to me?"

"I'm telling you he didn't have a choice. The  _ Alliance _ recruited you. Jack was just...doing his job."

Marcus shook his head, the gun lowering a little as Vaughn pulled his arm down a bit but kept his forearms upright with fingers spread.

"How do  _ you  _ know Sydney?"

"Dixon, we don't have time for-"

The gun was thrust minutely in his direction, the barrel shaky. “ **How** .”

“I’m her partner.” A white lie, but not likely one that would hurt.

Nearly a minute went by as almost black eyes stared into pleading green, Vaughn speaking up with urgency in his voice.

"Dixon, Sydney  _ has  _ been compromised. I have to get all of you out of here."

The man fell back into the chair, the gun clattering on the desk as tears filled his eyes. He was defeated.

"Everything I've...has been for the wrong side? How...how much harm have I done?"

"Sydney did a lot to fix it, Marcus. Look, I’m sorry. I...I know it’s a shock. I need you to get your family together so I can get you to the CIA field office. There’s a van out front, Will and Francie are already inside.”

Ignoring the urgency of Vaughn’s request, the agent fixed him with a pointed stare. “How do you know Sydney’s been compromised?”

Michael thought for a moment, realizing that the betrayed man may  _ believe _ him, he certainly didn't trust him. “I’ve been Sydney’s partner at the CIA for almost two years, and I know the pain you feel right now...the pain of losing her. I know you love her, and...and I know that she didn’t want to hurt you like this. I’m sitting here  _ instead  _ of her only because of this situation. She  _ always  _ had the intention of being the one to tell you the truth.”

Vaughn saw the sadness in the older man’s eyes and knew that a very similar, yet altogether different, pain projected from every pore in his body. Dixon’s question was quiet but stung like salt poured into an open wound, “you..don’t sound like extraction is possible. Is it?”

Michael swallowed the lump rising in his throat. “We can feel the pain together later if you want but I  _ promised _ her, Dixon. I promised I’d get you and your family somewhere safe."

A series of heart-pinching seconds ticked by, the man seeming to be lost in thought. Vaughn almost spoke up again when he uttered, “how can I help?” 

Michael smiled thankfully, “you’ll be taken into debriefing when we get to the facility, but...we'll be trying to figure out if you have any information that could help us find her.”

Dixon leaned back in his seat lifting the gun and showing the agent that it wasn’t loaded before he put it away. “You...do you know how strange it is to hear someone else say that  _ they’re  _ Sydney’s partner at the CIA?”

Vaughn relaxed his back in the chair. “I really am sorry to hit you with this.”

“How compromised is compromised?”

Marcus saw the glistening of tears in the young green eyes and sighed with a nod, folding his hands in his lap. "You're the new guy," he said quietly, a tear dripping down his cheek before looking up at the confused young man opposite his desk. "For the last month she's had this...glow. And I pushed and poked her about it for days until she finally said 'he's really great', but that's all I could get out of her. It...makes sense now."

Vaughn's chin quivered as he focused his pained stare on the cherry wood desk. "We...couldn't. Uh," sniffle, "nothing happened."

Dixon chuckled. "I've been a stand-in as Sydney's father for years, you think I don't know what her glow means?"

Seeing that he wasn't going to be able to get out of the sudden inquiry, the young man sighed and slumped in his seat trying to redirect the conversation as it was hitting too close to his heart. "I...I felt so bad every time she had to lie to you. Every time she came to me to vent about the frustrations of us sabotaging your work and having you doubt your abilities or...or put you in danger."

"She talked to you about me?"

Vaughn smiled. "She did." He went quiet for a moment before meeting the other agent's eyes. 

"I love her like a daughter, you know."

"I know, Marcus."

"You," he gulped past the tightness in his throat, "you love her too. And for that…I'm genuinely sorry."

**…**


	9. Mister Flynn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [](https://www.flickr.com/photos/190971129@N06/50577446226/in/dateposted/)

Sydney woke with a foggy haze settled over her brain as she smacked her lips against the medicinal taste in the back of her throat. Intending to reach up and rub her bleary eyes, she found that her hands were bound behind her with arms twisted around the back of a sturdy metal chair. Closing her eyes and taking several deep breaths she reopened to focus on her surroundings.

Concrete, bunker-like room? Check.

No windows and only one door? Check.

Probably underground because of the cooler temperature? Check.

Mounted camera on a tripod to film whatever horrible things they have planned? Check.

Drain underneath the chair? Check.

Completely restrained? Check.

Taking stock in herself she found that she was fine other than a little hazy from whatever drug they jammed into her system. Her arms were sore where they were tightly bound around the back of the chair, and the same metal wrapped around her wrists was wrapped around each leg just above the ankle adhering them to the two front legs of the chair. They bit into her shin as she wiggled and she realized they’d rolled her pants up to ensure that the rough cables came into full contact with her skin to disallow any slippage. 

Her jacket and long-sleeved button-up had been removed and she sat in her black dress pants and dark red tank top, her bare feet cold on the metal plate below the chair as she traced the outline of the drain with her toes as much as she could reach.

Panic threatened her with a heavy pressure on her chest, but she pushed it down to stay focused. Her father’s voice sounded in her head from when she was first learning to ride a bike without training wheels: _“it’s not useful getting worked up over what is inevitably going to happen. You_ **_will_ ** _fall off of this bike. Don’t focus on that. Focus on what you’re going to do when you get back on the seat.”_

Refocusing, she sighed and switched on the Bristow side of her brain. _‘I knew this could happen. I...I knew what would happen if I got caught. Dad’s safe, Will and Francie and Dixon are safe. This...this is just one of those outcomes you hoped wouldn’t happen, but did.’_

Minutes ticked by as the room stayed silent. Long minutes. Those minutes turned to hours, Sydney having only her thoughts to keep her company.

**…**

“Sir?” A nervous analyst walked into the conference room where Vaughn, Will, and Jack sat alone at the table pouring over files with laptops open looking for any lead they could find.

“What is it?” A gruff and tired voice barked without looking up.

“There’s something you should see.” The wiry man walked over and commandeered the laptop at the front of the room, the projector screen coming to life. The three waited impatiently as the analyst worked the mouse and keyboard until a website popped up. It was a simple page, but their eyes went wide at the large, bold message at the top.

**THE INTERROGATION OF SYDNEY BRISTOW, CIA SPY**

A clock was counting down beneath the title, the time remaining at 20 hours and 18 minutes.The man sighed and clicked play on the video that took up the majority of the screen, the image flickering to life as a man no one recognized sat on the edge of a wooden desk in a drab office. His mid-tone British accent pushed the limits of the projector speakers putting them all on edge. 

"Good morning. I'll assume that I have the attention of a mixed bag. Definitely the CIA. I mean, you guys are on it. But there's going to be a rush on the dark web soon, you can't bury _this_ one, Americans, and this website will be on every news station your country has to offer in under thirty minutes. Well...maybe an hour after they try vetting the intel."

"Now, I know what you're thinking." He paused with a cocky smile as his hands waved about dramatically. "This has to be fake! Well, I assure you it's not. I work for an organization that is right tired of the CIA sticking their proverbial noses where they don’t belong." Stopping to smile into the camera, a long few seconds ticked by as he waggled a finger at the lens. “And you just had to keep poking, didn’t you?”

The man rose and walked around the desk to sit in an ornately plush leather chair. "The funny thing is the number of web nerds that are going to write this off as a hoax while, at this literal moment, the CIA is freaking out because they know how serious I am. What a world, eh?" He lit a cigarette and leaned back, crossing one leg over the other before blowing a ring of smoke out above his head.

"The truth of the matter is this, and you can believe me if you want or click away and go about your day, but we _have_ abducted a CIA agent. That agent’s name is Sydney Bristow. And while she was terribly good at her job, much to our annoyance, she wasn’t good enough to not...get...caught.” 

He took a long drag, the end of the cigarette burning bright as the lens compensated. “So what’s next? Ransom? Maybe some wild negotiations?” Blowing the smoke out in a chuckled puff, “no - not this time. I'm going to torture her, to death, right in front of this camera. No ransom; no negotiations. Why? Partly because we’re making a statement. Partly because we know that her friends, father, boyfriend of some sort, and soon the majority of the world will be watching every...single...moment."

Putting the cigarette out in a crystal ashtray, the man leaned forward with his elbows on the desk. "We'll see you in twenty hours."

The screen went blank as the video ended, the analyst speaking up. "It went live twelve minutes ago."

"Four hours away from the airport heading east," Will grumbled and slammed the lid to his laptop shut. "She could be anywhere across Europe...maybe even into Russia."

Kendall walked into the room with nearly a dozen others following. "I assume you've seen the video?" At their nods, he continued. "The Alliance is doubling down. By calling her out as CIA, they're making her an SD-6 martyr. The choices are to claim her or not, but either way, we need to get ahead of this. Options?"

Jack rubbed a hand over his strained eyes, “if we claim her it’ll put everyone at SD-6 at risk. Those that don’t know the truth will start to ask questions, and those that do know the truth can't give the right answers. The protocol everyone is fed from the start is that no matter what, the CIA will disavow all knowledge of us as operatives.”

“We could claim her as a citizen,” Will piped up, a dozen pairs of eyes turning to stare in his direction. “Right, so we can’t - uh, well the CIA can’t confirm she’s an agent, but we can claim her as a citizen. Put out a message saying that you are working with other agencies and that we’re searching for evidence that what this asshole is saying is true - but in the meantime, we’re operating under the guise that they’re being honest about having abducted a U.S. citizen.”

"Kidnapping is the FBIs jurisdiction. Why make a statement other than to disavow any knowledge of Sydney Bristow?" The man that spoke up wasn't entirely prepared for the host of glares fired in his direction, and he shrunk down in his seat.

Kendall turned to the woman on his left, her glasses low on her nose as she quickly read over several different papers in a file folder. “We can say we’re looking into things, but the media will want answers sooner rather than later. We’re already getting requests from news sources asking for confirmation of Agent Bristow’s status. I mean, it could work for a little while, but will we have any answers or statements for the moment that clock hits zero? Or a day later as they torture her in front of anyone with an internet connection? Hell - the _news_ will cover this. Millions of people won’t even need to visit the website to know what’s happening.”

Kendall huffed, “we have to hope we’ve found her by then. Any help with the video feed?”

An analyst spoke up, “no, sir. It’s untraceable. Well - it’s bouncing off of 70,000 towers every seven minutes. I mean, it’s coming from Europe, we think, but it’s hitting every major country and plenty of minor ones several times a second. It’s...it’s going to be impossible to sort through that and actually have it pin-point a location.”

The room went quiet, Kendall looking down at his hands resting on the table before taking a stand. “Sydney is an exemplary agent, one of the best I’ve worked with. The list of things she’s done for us without expecting anything in return is a mile long. I don’t know about you, but I’m not going to let the world watch her die. We have twenty hours, people; let’s get a move on.”

…

The metallic door opened and a sauntering man entered. “Ah, you’re awake. How long have you been awake?” His British accent was rough around the edges and his mannerisms screamed cockney footballer. Despite this, he was dressed in a three-piece suit. His hair was a dirty blonde and ruffled as if he'd run a hand through it after wearing a hat all morning, if it was still morning. 

Sydney didn’t reply, merely staring with cautious brown eyes. “Not a talker, eh? We’ll see about that.” While he fidgeted with the camera a second man came in with a long ethernet cable and a wired router. Feeding the cords through a pre-drilled hole in the wall, they went about setting up the wiring as she sat ignored in the center of the room.

Her arms were aching, the cables binding her wrists and legs a thick rough wire with no coating. No matter how much she’d twisted, all it did was rub at her skin without allowing any slippage. This clearly wasn’t his first torture session, and she’d given up on the restraints after a few minutes. 

The chair wasn’t budging either. It was custom-made of thick steel, the welding surprisingly efficient. She’d tried to wobble around a bit in an attempt to find a weak point, but it didn’t even creak when she’d shifted her weight. The fact that it was also welded to the metal drain plate on the floor made it so she definitely wasn’t going to be able to use it as an asset.

“Look at you. Your pretty brown eyes scanning the room for any advantage. That’s what I like about you spies: you always look for the advantage.”

Silence.

“Come now, sweetheart, we’re going to be together for a week. Can we not hit it off?”

Silence.

The Brit sighed tossing a look of exasperation over the camera to the bound woman a few feet away. “Let’s start again. My name is Flynn and we’re going to get to know each other this week. You see, the Alliance gave you to me because I always get the results they want. I’m really good at what I do, so I’ve no doubt I can get you to give up your secrets.”

“You can try.” She tried to put a nonchalant fierceness to her voice, though not having said anything for hours made the tone raspy and low.

“Ooh, she _does_ speak. How delightful!” Flynn was all smiles as he made sure the cables around the camera were out of the way, another man Sydney also didn’t recognize wheeling in a table with a laptop, more cables, and other various batteries and wire-cutting tools. She watched them with curiosity though she kept quiet despite the myriad of questions she wanted to throw their way.

“Here’s the deal, love,” Flynn started, grabbing a rolling chair and wheeling it in front of her, his posture open as his elbows rested on his thighs with hands folding together. His blue eyes bored intently into hers as he spoke, and Sydney was surprised at the open honesty she read in the aqua depths. “You were found out a few months ago if you’ve been wondering. But, instead of just offing you, they asked that I watch for a while and build a file. And I learned a _lot_. They want you punished and I promised seven days. Keep in mind that no matter how bad it gets...we're going for the full seven days.”

She cracked a small smile. “If you’ve been following me for months you know I don’t bend to intimidation. If it’s intel they want, maybe I know and maybe I don’t. Wouldn’t this all be moot if I didn’t know what they wanted?”

Flynn laughed. “Oh, sweetheart - they don’t want intelligence, they want you dead. I mean yeah, if I can get some intel out of you I’m supposed to try.” His tone went soft and low, almost sympathetic. “They want me to kill you, Sydney. Long and drawn out...painful and real. And they want your father, friends, and anyone else that loves you to watch. God’s honest truth, darling, they don’t want anything from you but screams.”

Some of her bravado drained away a bit. “There it is: the moment you realized the reality of your situation.” He stood and stepped a few feet closer before sliding his hands in his pockets looking down at the woman before him. “You see, we knew you were a double but as I watched I could tell that there was more to the story. Lo and behold I find that Jack Bristow, daddy dearest, is in the picture as well.”

Her mind raced a mile a minute. “You’re cute when you think,” Flynn grinned. He crouched in front of her, his face still honest and his voice going soft. “Your dad also needs to be punished. And the stooges in the CIA office that send you on counter missions? They get to feel the guilt of sending you on a mission you didn’t come back from, so that’s where this comes into play,” he chuckled and stood back up heading back to the camera.

“ _This_ is for them almost as much as for my bosses. A live-streaming web page, completely untraceable. We’ve been getting it ready for a couple weeks now and it went up about two hours ago. The world is finally going to know who you are, Sydney. Your accomplishments will be bared for all to see. You, sweetheart, are going to be famous.”

“Y-you’re going to stream everything online?”

“Mmhmm.”

“Won’t that at the least compromise your L.A. branch?”

“And that’s where your cooperation comes in. It absolutely will compromise an office full of innocent people, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned from watching and reading up on your SD-6 and CIA files these past few weeks, your weakness is definitely going to be me threatening those innocent people. Which I am absolutely doing.”

He left the camera moving to sit back down across from her. “So keep in mind that if you mention anything about SD-6, even the name, you’re burning every single innocent person in that field office _as well as_ your friend Will Tippin. Stick with the Alliance because everyone thinks we’re the bad guys anyway, even though they don't know they're working for us."

She sighed, knowing he wasn't kidding. The offputting part was that he wasn’t boastful or cocky, at least not yet. He was sure of himself and brazenly honest with every sentence. He wasn’t much older than she was by the looks of it, but he was so far very skilled at his job. He smiled when he saw her trying to figure him out.

“I know so much about you, Sydney, it’s like one-way dating. You’ve almost finished your degree despite your work at the bank being so demanding,” he exaggerated a wink. “Francie’s restaurant seems to be doing well and Will...well, Will seems to enjoy his new job, though I’ve had a devil of a time figuring out what that new job is. Care to enlighten me?” 

Hey eyes darkened and a scowl hit her face setting her lips in a thin, pursed line. “You know, I’d actually kill to see the look on Francie’s face when this whole thing goes public. If I was to learn that my best friend kept a secret this huge from me, it would quite honestly tear me apart inside. I wouldn’t be able to keep myself from wondering what aspect of our friendship had ever been real.”

She felt a tightness in her throat but tried to ignore it and keep the hard steely resolve shining through defiant brown eyes. His gaze never wavered, his cerulean eyes holding hers as if fixed in a trance. “What’s the last thing you said to them, Sydney? Do you remember what it was?”

His voice was sweet, sickly sweet, and she couldn’t stop from recalling three days earlier when they had met for coffee at Francie’s before her meeting and London flight.

_“Syd, dear god, when will it let up? Seriously, honey, you need a break. Call the crush up and take a naked week off.”_

_“Francie,” Sydney grumbled into her latte, Will blushing a bit and taking a bite of his scone._

_“Yeah, yeah, I know, one time thing. You know, you’re never gonna be happy if you keep working there.”_

_“Contrary to what you and Will think, I like my job.”_

_Francie scoffed, Will sending Sydney a soft, knowing smile. “Please. You like what you_ **_do_ ** _, but not your job. If only there were other banks in Los Angeles.”_

_Managing to change the subject they hung out and laughed until Sydney looked to her phone and hopped up. “Alright, I’m off to a meeting and then to London. I’ll be back in a few days.”_

_“Is your crush gonna be there?” Francie asked and saw the flush hit Sydney’s cheeks. “Ooooh, round three!”_

_“I hate you. I really do,” Sydney growled, hugging them both._

_Will whispered, "be safe," Sydney promising before heading off._

“ **I hate you** is such a strong thing to say. I’m _sure_ you meant it as a joke. But...having **that** be the last thing to say to someone? Someone you’ll never see again? Someone you love?” He shook his head slowly with a wince tilting the right side of his mouth. Standing tall he looked down at the suddenly emotionally open young woman, though her eyes stayed low as she focused on the center of his chest. 

“I must admit, I’m terribly excited to learn about this crush, Sydney.”

She felt the wetness on her cheeks, cursing her emotions for spilling out on day one, Flynn zeroing in on the conflict behind her eyes and the war she was waging with herself. He reached out and cupped her cheek, smiling when she yanked her head away. “It’s not your fault, love, you’re a very emotional person. You care deeply and love completely, and in someone with a normal life that’s not a bad thing. But we’re not normal, are we, Sydney? This is your biggest weakness, and one I intend to exploit over...and over,” his words were powerful, and he moved to circle her slowly, his hand coming up and tracing a line behind her shoulders and through her chestnut hair hanging from the ponytail to the opposite side, “and over...and over again.” his hand left her shoulder and he moved to stand in front of her with a predatory gleam in his eyes.

Once the camera was set, laptop running, and cables trimmed and sorted, Flynn looked to his watch. “Well, eight hours to go before we’re live. Sit tight, we’ll be in to finish up just before the zero hour.”

Finally left alone with her all-consuming thoughts, Sydney sniffled into the empty room as she finally admitted to herself that she was terrified.

**…**


	10. Out Of the Box

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [](https://www.flickr.com/photos/190971129@N06/50577704571/in/dateposted/)

“Mr. Sloane?” Marshall stood fidgeting from his left foot to his right outside the open glass door of his boss’ office.

“Yes, Marshall, what is it?”

The tech genius hurried in to see the older man slumped in his seat wearing the same rumpled suit from the previous day with deep bags under his eyes.

“I...found something you should see,” he stuttered and set the laptop down on the glass desk. It flickered to life and Arvin saw the website, read the title at the top, and put a fake glare across his features.

“What is this?” 

_ ‘Acting, Arvin. You’re good at this. Ignore the feelings; ignore the fact that they have someone you once considered as a daughter in their clutches. Ignore it all and act.’ _

“Is...is this real, sir? Has Sydney been taken?”

Sloane clicked and watched the video.  _ ‘I didn’t actually think they’d bring Flynn in, I thought they wouldn’t be as dramatic as that.’ _ Looking up at Marshall and seeing the concern written deep, he tried to match the emotion though it wasn’t hard to show that he was shocked, saddened, and surprised by aspects of what he already vaguely knew. “Get on this, Marshall. Can you trace it?”

“No, sir, I already tried but I can keep working on it.”

“How long has it been up?”

“About thirty minutes. Are...are we going to do something?”

Sloane sighed. “If you can find her we’ll see what we can do. I’ll make contact with Langley, but Marshall - this...this is the hard part of what we do as black ops. The CIA can’t say that she’s one of them, one of us, officially.”

“But  _ we  _ can, right Mr. Sloane?”

“We can indeed. Coordinate with Dixon but...as much as you can, keep this between the two of you in the office. There’s no need to have anyone panic. We’ll do what we can; we’ll do everything we can.”

The techie scampered off with renewed vigor like David sent to slay Goliath. Only, Marshall wasn’t David or the sling - he was the stone. And stones could be fired in any direction depending on who held the weapon. The Alliance had this planned to a tee, all the way down to assuming that her cell would want to find and rescue their agent. Countermeasures were put into place that Sloane hoped Flinkman wouldn’t be able to skirt because if he did, it would mean the end of SD-6 as a branch of the Alliance. He would be moved to another facility and a new branch would be constructed. Dozens of years of work up in flames, and he’d likely lose his partnership status.

Though it had been over a month after finding out, he was still upset that Sydney had betrayed him. But he wasn’t surprised. Since the death of her fiancé, which he’d ordered, she hadn’t been the same. 

_ “Arvin, you cannot deny it any longer. The evidence is...overwhelming. We’ll dispatch a sniper and you  _ **_will_ ** _ send her on a mission without Agent Dixon.” _

_ "Alain, you must respect how furious I am at learning this. This isn’t only a sleight against the Alliance; I’m taking this as a personal affront and I’ll gladly help you arrange what needs to be done. However, take a look at the files I’ve just sent you. These are Agent Bristow’s missions over the last twelve months. There’s...a pattern. An unfortunate pattern. She knows so much more about all of these things than what she wrote in her reports, and I feel we deserve to know the information she’s kept from us.” _

_ There was a long pause over the phone, Sloane looking at his phone for a moment to make sure the call was still connected. His heart was beating a mile a minute as he’d been ambushed late at night with the call regarding Sydney’s status as a double inside SD-6. There wasn’t a thing he could do from home but stall. _

_ "Interesting. What are you suggesting?” _

_ "Bring someone in. They can assess what we’ve lost and when satisfied, can...interrogate Sydney. I’ve also sent you a report from McCullough on best information extraction practices based on her psychological profile.” _

_ "Good lord, Arvin, I thought this would be a harder decision for you. Didn’t you and your wife take her in as a child? She lived with you for over a year and you’ve mentioned many times the closeness of your relationship. Part of that is what blinded you to her deception for so long. And now you...you want her tortured?” _

_ "She’s not a child any longer. If you’re curious, yes - I do have regrets over my inattentiveness and potential nepotism, and this will haunt me. But she  _ **_betrayed_ ** _ us. Family or not, she must pay for that. No exceptions.” _

_ "I’ll contact Flynn. In the meantime, we’ll get in contact with our mole in Langley to get her protocols. She’ll be much easier to intercept if she thinks she’s with friends.” _

A month later, Flynn provided them with a myriad of evidence showing that Sydney had indeed been betraying them for at least 18 months. The surprise that hit Sloane the hardest was information that the daughter was following in the footsteps of the father. Unlike the dissipated anger with Sydney, he was furious at what he had assumed to be his oldest friend. For weeks he’d been sending them on missions assuming that was the last time he’d see either, but the Alliance was patient and now he knew why.

They were hounding him to find Jack, but he’d honestly not seen him in a few days. Perhaps Sydney had warned him? He wasn’t sure how when she had clearly been taken by surprise, but the two of them had been working together to undo SD-6 for over a year and must have had something in place if the other was compromised.

So he’d sent Marshall on a fool's errand knowing he wouldn’t get far, Arvin staying in his office sulking behind a blank computer screen. Convincing the other partners to have her tortured for information was the only way he could give Jack time to find her, and maybe even give Sydney a chance at escaping. It also showed the heads of the Alliance that he was all-in with the idea of punishment. Two birds with one stone, as it were.

Sloane thought they were bluffing when Alain had mentioned Flynn. He’d seen the man’s work and knew that it was almost the same as sentencing her to death, but with a hidden sniper, she’d have absolutely no recourse. The numbers ran through his head without his permission, and though the opportunity for escape or rescue was there, he knew it was slim.

Despite everything, he was going to miss them both terribly.

**…**

Jack hurried past the conference room but stopped short as he spotted Michael Vaughn sitting alone with an unfocused, glazed look in his eyes. He handed his notes to Will, another potential lead for the analysts to chase, and moved into the room to stand before the dejected agent.

“You told me not to give up on her, do I need to say the same?” The father’s voice was surprisingly soft, Vaughn closing his eyes, a sad crook raising his lips into a ghost of a smile.

He didn’t speak, merely pointed, Jack’s eyes seeing the ugly website he knew far too well as the clock continued its countdown. 

“Five hours left, Jack, and we have less now than when we started. They...they’ve been planning this for weeks, maybe longer, and...I’ve been trying desperately to find where we screwed up. Maybe it’ll give us a lead, something to start with - someone. But I have no clue how they found out. I don’t know if it was something she said, something I said,” he breathed a heavy sigh, “something we did.”

“We have five hours left to find her, Vaughn, I need you on this.  _ She _ needs you on this.”

The agent nodded, another deep sigh lifting his chest and dropping it just as quickly. “I’ve got dead ends here. There’s nothing in the last five months of missions that would indicate that something went  _ this _ wrong.”

“We have a contact in the DOJ. They put in a note a few weeks ago to the duty officer that they thought Langley had an informant. It’s worth looking at. If we find this person they may be able to tell us where they’ve taken her.”

Vaughn frowned. “An informant, like a mole?”

“Apparently.”

_ 'Maybe it wasn’t something you did. Maybe this whole thing isn’t your fault.’ _

An hour passed as that lead, and two others, went cold. The skinny analyst cursed and tossed the wireless mouse across the room in a surprising bout of frustration. “Take a walk, Paul,” Will ordered gently, the man apologizing and leaving the room as the three of them looked back and forth, each empty-handed.

Michael leaned forward with a whisper, “Jack, did Irina have anything?” He knew they weren’t supposed to talk with the woman in holding about this situation, per Kendall’s order, but Jack wasn’t about to keep from using a=that fount of information in a situation as dire as this. 

The father shook his head.

_ "What do you mean ‘taken’?” The usually emotionless voice of Irina Derevko was elevated and suddenly abrasive as Jack looked back down the hallway waiting for the armed guard to get an order from Kendall to have her closed off from all visitation. _

_ "She was made weeks ago, maybe over a month, but they were waiting for something. Maybe some operation. You...you wouldn’t have a contact out there I could go to for information, would you?” _

_ There was a tense moment of silence as she scrolled her brain for contacts, Jack waiting impatiently as he uncharacteristically fidgeted in the hallway on the other side of the glass. _

_ "There’s one contact in France, a Renee Arnaud. He worked very closely with upper echelon Alliance members and me on occasion when we were dealing with anything Rambaldi.” _

_ "This isn’t Rambaldi-related, Irina. Besides, he’s been in police custody for a week. He’s a dead end. Next.” _

_ She rattled off three or four names, Jack writing two of them down and dismissing the others as they’d already been tested. _

_ "Our daughter is going to die, isn’t she?” _

_ Her softly spoken and watery words pulled him from his pen and paper, their eyes meeting through the partition. “We don’t know that. She’s...she’s gotten out of a lot before-” _

_ "This is different. We both know it’s different, we can...can feel it. Jack...this is  _ **_our_ ** _ fault.  _ **_We_ ** _ got her into this life.” _

_ The father shook his head, though the guilt in her voice matched his, “we’re not going to lose her. We’ll find her.” _

_ Irina crossed her arms over her stomach, Jack noting that Sydney shared that same defensive tick. His ex-wife’s chin quivered, “she didn’t deserve this, Jack.” _

_ "Stop. Think. Is there  _ **_anyone_ ** _ you can think of that may have connections high up in the Alliance? Anything we can use to tie them to a location where they could have taken her?” _

_ Tears fell from the mother’s unfocused eyes as she stared off at a point in space to the right of the window. “Jack - she…” _

_ His face turned red as he slammed his palm on the glass. “Goddamnit, Laura  _ **_I know_ ** _!” _

_ She jumped and her eyes flew wide, the two staring at one another in surprise as a few moments ticked by. _

_ " _ **_Irina_ ** _. I know. I know it should be me. They...they have our little girl and they’re going to do...horrible things if we can’t find her. I...I can’t let that happen. Not to Sydney.” _

_ “I don’t know anyone that could help but the people I’ve named. Jack...if you don’t find her,” she swallowed at the rising painful lump in her throat, “tell Kendall I’ll stop cooperating and accept my sentence.” _

_ She hadn’t expected to see his stoic facade crumble. Jack leaned with hands flat against the glass, Irina wanting nothing more than to pull him into her arms as she had almost thirty years earlier when he’d come home worn down from an assignment. His drooping shoulders and the deep grooves on his forehead and around his mouth stood out giving away his frantic worry, a dramatic difference from his usually unreadable expression and body language. _

_ "Tell me what you’re thinking,” she goaded as she leaned her shoulder against the glass between his pressing hands, the closest she could get to hold him while pretending she was also being held by him. _

_ "I...don’t know how to process the potential of losing you both right now.” His words were quiet but honest, perhaps the first honest thing said between them in a very long time aside from his threats to her survival over the past few months. _

_ "You’ll find her, Jack. You’ve always been there for her. She’s lucky it’s  _ **_you_ ** _ out there and not me. Please...please keep me informed.” _

Jack had shaken off the encounter having not since returned to the cell, unsure if he  _ would  _ unless something drastic happened with the case either way.

“And there’s no way to access their system without being in the office,” Will confirmed talking to himself as he and Vaughn went over the very short list of things they knew for certain.

“I’ve already offered to go, but Vaughn is right when he says I’ll be taken into custody before I could even reach a terminal.”

The three sat for several long minutes until Will excused himself to go check on Francie as their ideas petered out, the lower levels serving as housing for them all as well as Dixon’s family for the foreseeable future.

A light went off behind Vaughn’s eyes, “wait. Who’s that guy at SD-6, the tech guy.”

“Marshall?”

“Marshall. We were going to extract him months ago but it went belly-up. Could...could he find a way to trace the signal feeding the website?”

Jack wavered a bit. “Not internally. If they  _ have  _ been planning he’s operating within a well-designed box.”

“So we let him out of the box.”

“You want to extract, Marshall? How?”

“He has to go home at some point, right? I mean,” he looked down at his watch, “it’s one in the morning.”

The father thought hard for a moment, his grey-blue eyes twitching as he ran through the list of pros and cons in his head. “What the hell,” Jack mumbled, though the nearly last remnant of hope was staying lit at the idea of Marshall being able to help. Lifting his phone he dialed the techie’s number and set it to speaker, surprised and yet not when he picked up on the second ring.

“Jack - oh Jack, thank god. I...I found that website-”

The senior agent interrupted. “Marshall, I need you to listen to me very carefully. Is this a secure line?”

“Of course - all my phones have a custom-designed chip that-”

“Good. Where are you right now?”

“Home, but...I brought my laptop with me. I’m trying, Jack, I’m trying to find her but...this is impossible.”

A small smile hit the corner of the man’s usually surly face. “Marshall, I need you to meet someone for me, can you do that?”

“Uh...maybe? Who and where?”

“I’ll text you the information, but this has to remain a secret. You  _ cannot _ under  _ any  _ circumstances let SD-6 know where you are, or with whom you are meeting, do you understand?”

He and Vaughn waited impatiently hearing clanking, crashing, and a whole bunch of racket over the speaker as they shared concerned looks back and forth. “Marshall?” Hurried breathing, the sound of keys jingling, and then the closing of a car door. 

“Send me the info, I’ll leave now. We’re...we’re gonna go get her, right Jack?”

“Thank you, Marshall.”

**…**

Sydney woke slowly as a hand softly caressed her cheek. The bright light of the room made her squint and she couldn’t help the grumble as she remembered where she was, Flynn stepping back with a shit-eating grin on his face. “You talk in your sleep. Mostly incoherent, but it does make one wonder what secrets you’ve given away in bed. Ooh, does your crush work in the business? Sharing secrets across the pillow, eh?”

Anger flashed in her eyes and he laughed. “Tell me about this crush, Sydney. Do you think he’ll be watching? Is he back in the states sitting in an uncomfortable office chair planning a daring rescue? Are you just pining, love?”

She stayed quiet. “Oh don’t play the silent game again, Sydney, we’ve so much planned!”

Silence.

"Suit yourself," he shrugged and wheeled over a cart with a small portable battery and a bundle of meticulously coiled cords and wires, each ending with an adhesive pad. It reminded her of an EKG machine, though smaller and definitely homemade. 

“This is one of my favorite new devices. I tested it out and you know what, I think I’ve really outdone myself this time.” He made his way to her side seeing the frown on her forehead and the way her eyes looked straight ahead in an attempt to ignore his excitement. Pulling the cart close he began fastening the sticky pads to her left arm, then right, and one on each side of her neck before kneeling. Sticking a pad to the top of each foot he worked his way up to her calves before lifting her tank top and pressing one to the lower part of her left and right rib cage both in front and behind, between her and the bars of the chair. The last one he adhered under her belly button behind the clasp of her trousers.

Bundling the wires as they ran to the floor, each coated in plastic casing, they led back up to the machine where he twisted the exposed metal ends together and connected them to the battery. 

“Shall we give it a test?” Flynn wiggled his eyebrows at her and flipped the switch, Sydney expecting to feel the sudden jolt of electricity running through her body licking at each nerve ending, but that isn’t what happened.

An odd sensation, more like a vibration, coursed through her skin making her look down at the pads she could see, but they weren’t doing anything. It didn’t hurt, but it was uncomfortable. Meeting his eyes with a confused glare, he grinned and walked to her side. 

“Annoying, isn’t it? See what it really does is turn you into a conduit for the simplest electrical charge. Even one coming from a fingertip.” He’d turned on the silk voice again, Sydney learning to be wary when his tone changed from over-dramatic and abrasive to soft and sympathetic. Worse still was that he’d moved behind her where she wasn’t able to see him.

A lick of fire singed her skin as he grazed the back of her fingers and she gasped at the suddenness of the sensation. The pain was localized to a few inches around where he touched, but it was acute and went straight to the nearest nerve endings.

“Every single time I touch you,” he said slowly as he kept the tip of his finger lightly against her skin dragging it up to her arm to her shoulder, a dark smile on his face as she groaned and clenched her jaw trying to compartmentalize the pain, “it’s localized fire. Not enough to kill you, it’s not that kind of shock, but painful enough for you to begin despising human contact.”

She breathed heavy as his hand left and the fire faded back to the annoying, vibrating tickle. He chuckled and moved to the table to organize the items to his liking. Different styles of knives, needles, tape, and long candle lighters were meticulously placed on the surface along with a set of pliers and a ball-peen hammer. Classic tools of the torture trade, though with this added electrical component, she now didn’t know what to expect.

“Do you need anything, love?” Flynn asked as he headed toward the door, a casual look crossing his face.

Her glare was his answer and his laugh echoed in the bright room after he left.

**…**


	11. The Zero Hour

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [](https://www.flickr.com/photos/190971129@N06/50577941842/in/dateposted/)   
> 

Francie jumped at the soft knock at the door, expecting Will as she opened it slowly. Why he was knocking she had no clue, but faltered a bit as Vaughn stood with his hands in his pockets and a soft, friendly smile on his face. He looked less put together than earlier, his tie hanging loose and crooked at the collar, hair a disheveled mess showing that he’d run his hands through it in frustration half a dozen times that hour alone, and the jacket had been ditched hours earlier leaving a brown leather holster with a handgun cinched to his shoulders.

“May I come in?”

The woman nodded silently and stepped back, Michael walking into the large single room identical to the one he was using down the hall. The rooms sported a bed, a desk, and a television mounted to the wall, and felt very much like staying in a cheap motel. The T.V. was muted, some kind of cooking show playing. 

“I thought I’d come down and see how you were doing, I know it’s been a...a weird day.”

She laughed wryly at his understatement. “You...you promised earlier that you’d answer any questions I had, is now a good time? Because I have about a million.”

He nodded in response taking a seat at the desk as she folded her legs under her on the bed clutching a pillow to her chest and stomach for comfort. “How...long has Sydney been...not who she said she was?”

Michael flinched at the words she chose. “Almost ten years.”

Francie’s sighed as tears filled her eyes. “Did she ever work at a bank?”

Vaughn smiled trying to send her comfort in his friendly gaze. “Credit Dauphine is a _real_ bank, it just happens to be owned by a world-wide terrorist organization. When Sydney was recruited in her first year of college, they started her at the bank as they ran background checks and did initial conditioning for her training.”

“But...why? Why lie about that?”

“They lie to maintain the cover story that they’re a secret branch of the CIA. Sydney’s profile that they built ahead of recruitment showed that she was a genius and while you think it would be easy to see past the charade, they’d been doing it for over 20 years before she was even brought in. They know how to dot their I’s and cross their T’s.”

Francie was quiet as her eyes stared blankly at the white of the bedspread. Vaughn continued, “Sydney came to us a little under two years ago, about a month after her fiance was killed. It’s…” he struggled with the desire to tell the hurting but curious young woman the truth over leaving her blissfully unaware of things she maybe wouldn’t want to know. 

“The biggest rule at SD-6 is secrecy, and they threaten that horrible things will happen to loved ones if their agents leak the truth. Sydney found out the hard way that they...they weren’t bluffing.” Francie’s eyes flew open as she realized the truth of his words.

“SD-6 killed Danny?”

“Yes.”

A strangled groan left her lips, her face matching the sound of her voice. “Why?”

“Because Sydney told him the truth. She didn’t want to marry him if their lives were going to be a lie, and...he got drunk and left her a voicemail. He said, ‘people aren’t spies forever’, and because they had her phone tapped they got to him long before she got home from her assignment. That’s what they do, Francie. That...that’s who they are.”

“How did she not know?” Sydney asked him that same question almost a year ago, and it stung him now almost as much as it had then.

“It’s...complicated in ways that most don’t understand. The point is that they lied to her, and until earlier today, they lied to Dixon and Marshall. They’re very good at what they do.”

Francie tried to work through the information that the man was giving her. “So...when she left to go to the bank, where did she really go? What did she actually do?”

“Some days she really did go to the bank. The SD-6 office is located underneath Credit Dauphine through a secure parking garage. In the office they would give her a mission, sometimes with Dixon sometimes solo, and she’d head off to do whatever they ordered.”

“Like what?”

Vaughn thought through the long list of missions that were in her file. “Covert entry to steal information from high-level targets of foreign governments, or getting a piece of prototype weapon or satellite technology.”

“Holy shit.”

Michael laughed. “Yeah. And over the last 18 months, things got kind of crazy. She’d get a mission from SD-6 and then contact the CIA. We would meet once I coordinated a counter mission, if we could, and she’d go off to do the assignment with the added twist of trying to keep important information and tech out of the hands of the bad guys.”

“I...I didn’t know anything about her,” she said sadly, Vaughn shaking his head quickly while setting a hand to her wrist.

“Francie, you knew the _real_ Sydney. Whether or not you knew the truth about her job, you and Will grounded her to reality, and while she couldn’t thank you for it, believe me when I say it was something she desperately needed.”

Francie realized how many secrets her friend had to keep and began to understand why the last two years had felt like they had been drifting apart. The two sat in silence for a few moments, though he checked his watch knowing he’d have to head back upstairs sooner rather than later to see what luck Marshall was having once he’d gotten out of debrief.

“Did...are you-” she paused, Michael leaning forward and encouraging her to ask him anything. “Are you and Syd dating?”

It was by far the hardest question that she’d asked. His brain screamed _‘yes’_ , but there was no way that what they had been doing for the last month had been dating. Pining eyes across the office and brushing fingertips when passing folders back and forth wasn’t dating.

“It’s...complicated.”

“Is that a yes?” She pushed because she had to know if this guy was _the guy_.

“No. We can’t just...date, Francie. If these people saw us _talking_ to each other we’d be shot and dumped in a river.”

This statement, and the anger behind it, shocked her. “That’s what she meant by ‘frowned-upon’.”

Vaughn chuckled despite the tightening in his throat. “That’s a very mild way of saying that, yes.”

“Did...are you the guy she went with to Hong Kong?”

Michael frowned. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“When she got hit by the car and hurt her leg a month ago. She said she...months ago she told me she had a crush on a guy from work named Michael, and then she said that she hooked up with him in Hong Kong. Are...is that you? If it’s not, god, I’m really sorry, but I gotta know.”

Michael looked down at his folded hands for a minute as Sydney’s breathy whisper of those three sacred words bounced around his memory. He couldn’t stop the tears from filling his eyes before he looked back up.

“Yeah. That...it wasn’t Hong Kong,” he corrected, clearing his watery throat, “it was Russia, and on the operation, she was stabbed in the leg. A blizzard blew in so we hiked two miles to a CIA safehouse cabin and hunkered down for a day and a half until they sent a rescue chopper.”

Francie was again reminded how little she knew about her best friend. Finally looking up and making eye contact she saw the anguish on the young man’s face. “She said she got hit by a car.”

Vaughn looked over at the closed door as a tear slipped down his cheek. “Sydney hated _every_ single moment she had to lie to you, I want you to know that. S-she didn’t want to lie but after Danny and with Will getting involved, she was terrified that you would learn even a tiny bit about her life that would put you in danger.”

Francie cried for a moment feeling his hand on her shoulder, and after a moment she took a deep breath and wiped at her face with her fingertips. Vaughn wasn’t prepared for her to chuckle and catch his attention, her face lost in memory. 

“This had to have been before Will figured things out, that idiot,” she grumbled, Michael grinning despite the painful thudding of his heart in his chest, “but she said something a few months ago when they got into another fight about her crazy-ass schedule. Will told her to quit her pointless job and...though it was harsh, I agreed.”

“What did she say?”

The smile left the woman’s face as she turned sorrow-filled brown eyes on the man she’d just started to get to know. “She said that her job was far from pointless and that if we even knew what she did each day we would thank her for doing her job so well. I have always been confused about her loyalty to that bank, but now...it...it makes so much sense.”

The conversation paused once more. “But...now that I have all this truth here, I don’t want it. I mean...I really wish I didn’t know, you know?”

Vaughn nodded. “I’m sorry, Francie.”

She backpedaled, “I don’t mean...I mean,” she swallowed, trying desperately to find the right words as if she’d just offended the green-eyed agent a few feet away. “I...it just makes me love her more.”

Michael smiled, “yeah.”

“Am I ever going to see her again?”

Vaughn felt the tightness back in his throat. He hadn’t given up yet, but things were looking grim. “I...don’t know.”

“The last thing I said was for her to quit her job, call up her crush, and have a week full of sex,” she sniffled seeing she soft smile on the green-eyed man’s face.

“I...wish she’d have entertained that a bit harder right now.”

**...**

_"Sydney?” Vaughn’s voice was distant and worried, she could hear it in the timbre. She had another bout of regret and asked herself for the millionth time since calling him ‘why the hell did you call him’._

_He rounded the corner and stepped in front of the closed gate seeing her seated on the cold cement floor leaning against a wooden shipping container with a mostly empty bottle of rum to her left. Her hair was disheveled as if she’d just run her fingers through it instead of a brush after a restless couple hours of tossing and turning in bed, and there were deep circles under her red-rimmed eyes. Even in the crappy overhead light he could see the wet trails on her cheeks and he slowly pulled the gate open to join her._

_"What happened?”_

_He felt a pang in his heart as she looked up at him, a fresh tear dripping down, and her eyes shone with guilt, shame, pain, and sorrow. She was in a warm-looking pair of pink sleep pants, the color juxtaposed against her mood, and a red camisole that clung to her waist. A sweater was abandoned on the table above her giving him a good look at the large bruise on her upper arm and finger-shaped dark circles on her wrist where the giant bodyguard from her mission a few days ago had grabbed her in an attempt to subdue. The guy had been left with a broken arm and a massive concussion at the very least, Sydney getting away lightly though he hated to see any marks on her skin._

_"What’s wrong?”_

_She held out her hand, something hidden behind the tips of her fingers, and Michael stepped into the cage, closed the gate behind him, and reached his hand out under her fingertips to accept what she offered. She dropped the item into his palm and took another swig from the bottle before wrapping her arms defensively over her stomach._

_Sydney took in his rumpled appearance. He wore plaid pajama pants that were hanging low on his hips and the outline of his physique pushed through the thin fabric of the plain white undershirt. He’d literally scrambled out of bed, put on shoes, and drove to meet her. Dropping her eyes quickly she tasted the guilt again at the back of her throat._

_In his palm was a ring - a simple engagement ring, but one he’d memorized a week into knowing her. Though he hadn’t seen it in months, Sydney saying that she was choosing to move on partially to help Francie and partially for herself when he’d asked, he recognized it quickly._

_"Shit,” he grumbled as his tired brain keyed into the date. “September 7th,” he said quietly, his fingers running over the smooth lines of the gold band and the faceted edges of the stone setting. It was one year to the day since her fiance had been murdered catapulting Sydney into her current hectic and complicated life._

_He saw her nod, her fist wrapping around the bottle and lifting to take a burning swig before setting it clumsily back to the floor within reach. “Sydney, I’m sorry.”_

_"Yeah,” she mumbled, Michael setting the ring back into her outstretched palm and pulling over the metal folding chair to take a seat. His body language was open as he folded his hands leaning his forearms on his knees. “I...if he din't know,” she swallowed, her words slurred, “if I never told him...I never would've,” pause, “lern’d the truth.”_

_He didn’t really know what to say so he nodded and let her keep going._

_"It ws_ **_my_ ** _fault. I...I got him killed,” she whispered past the quivering of her lips and closed her eyes._

_"None of what they’ve done to you is your fault, Sydney. That includes killing your fiance.”_

_"I’m srry I called,” she stuttered behind a hiccup, her hand picking up the bottle as Vaughn leaned over and pulled it easily from her grasp._

_"Enough, you’ve...had enough.” His mind was on overdrive thinking of how he could possibly get her home, and he frowned while asking, “how did you get here?”_

_"I’drove.” she said as one word mashed together. “Parked on th’ other side,” she gestured poorly with a loose wrist._

_"Sydney-” he balked about to read her the riot act for driving drunk, but she shook her head to clarify._

_"I did’n...drink till I got here. I,” she slurred, “I juss wanted to be ‘lone.”_

_He was relieved that she hadn’t been impaired on her ride over, which meant her mind was put-together enough to look for and shake tails if she’d had any._

_"If you...wanted to be alone, why did you call me?”_

_Her right shoulder shrugged as she frowned and sat up to tilt her head back with a thump against the wood, her eyes staring up at the pipes and metal of the ceiling, “I’m srry, I...shouldn’t’ve called.”_

_"Hey, no, that’s not,” he faltered and set the bottle on the table to his side away from the drunk young woman. "When I said you've got my number, I meant it."_

_"Why was I too dumb to figure it out?” She growled, her fist closing around air as she dimly recalled the bottle had been taken away._

_"Being good at what you do doesn’t mean you can’t be fooled. You’re not a fool, Syd, they just...they were better liars.”_

_They sat in comfortable silence, Vaughn watching emotions flash across her face. Since he'd started to have feelings for her he hadn't allowed himself time to stare, but in this moment there was ample opportunity and he was tired after worrying instead of sleeping the last four days._

_"Thiss year has been...too mush," she said quietly._

_"Agreed."_

_"I didn think it would be this hard."_

_Vaughn frowned. "You didn't think what would be this hard? Taking down an established, world-wide terrorist organization?" He was trying to add a little levity in an attempt to pull her out of an emotional downward spiral, but it was possible that she'd been in that spiral for over a day and hadn't reached out until now._

_They had their counter mission meeting, she went off to Austria, and then it had been four days. Three days of little to no sleep until tech services announced that the item had been retrieved from the dead drop location and was in analysis. She'd apparently done the mission to a tee, but for whatever reason had remained silent the entire time and for a day after. Now he knew why and his professional worry turned into a different kind of worry._

_His attempt to lighten things failed, and her sadness remained. "I juss…juss feel like everthing is...crumbling. All the time." He stayed quiet again letting her vent. "I can’t handle all this."_

_Almost a month had passed since she’d killed Noah Hicks, unfortunate timing with this other anniversary date right around the corner. He wasn’t sad to see Hicks gone since the man had turned out to be a notorious assassin. Vaughn had convinced himself that his relief wasn’t because she had gotten back into a relationship with the man and that relationship was now undoubtedly over, but that it was because he was sad to see her job take away someone else she'd cared about._

_Her voice was watery, tired, and had a rawness to it suggesting that this wasn't the only time she'd spent crying in the past few days._

_"Evrything with my mom...Noah, counter missions, Sloane tryin’ to kill me and Dixon doubting me," the list went on and he was actually thankful when she stopped. “I don know how to handle all this and do my job good...well."_

_Vaughn grinned. Drunk or not, she was an English major._

_"I juss...hurt people. Nothing I do matters." She flopped her head back against the wooden crate with a thud, her closing eyes squeezing out tears that ran down her temples to the angle of her jaw._

_That's where his tolerance ended. "Don’t ever say that again. You’ve done more in a year than your father's done in ten. Trust me, I’ve seen the files."_

_She stayed quiet, not agreeing or otherwise and not lifting her head, so he continued. "I know it's hard to see that what you do matters, Sydney, but you keep people safe…every day."_

_"Not Danny...not...Noah,” she countered. “Not at Badenweiler or…a handful of other missions where...where I got people killed.”_

_"You can’t carry the burden of every bad thing on your shoulders, Syd, that’s not fair. Those things...those things you couldn’t prevent.”_

_"I don’t wanna do this anymore.” She reopened her eyes seeing the slow shock hit his face._

_Her words cut him. “What?”_

_"I...can’t do this.”_

_"You...you want to quit?”_

_She sobbed, “yes.”_

_He thought that maybe it was just the weight of everything combined with the alcohol, but the seriousness in her eyes and the way her shoulders slumped when she admitted defeat made him simultaneously sad for her and angry at her._

_"You know you can’t do that. I’m...I’m sorry. I really am sorry about Danny, and Noah, and everything with your mom and dad that’s just...the worst right now, but you_ **_can not_** _quit_ _.”_

_She whimpered, “why not?”_

_"Because they’ll_ **_kill you_ ** _.”_

_She rolled her eyes closed but stayed quiet, her eyes pleading with his to let her go._

_"And they’ll kill_ **_everyone_ ** _you may have talked to. You_ **_know_ ** _this. I shouldn’t have to_ **_explain_ ** _this again after everything we’ve seen and done.” He folded his arms over his chest leaning against the creaking metal backrest trying to hug the anger back in as he took her words as a personal attack, even if she hadn’t intended it to be. She wasn’t just giving up on being a double,_ **_that_ ** _he didn’t blame her for, she was giving up on_ **_him_ ** _\- maybe eventually_ **_them_ ** _._

_"What if it never ends?” she whimpered._

_Instead of answering, he rose from the chair and decided to break his biggest rule: he knelt on the cold hard floor and pulled her into his arms._

**...**

"Do… do you have to hover?" Marshall grumbled over his shoulder to Vaughn as the agent bounced behind him eaten by nervous worry.

"Sorry," he mumbled and took a step back, bumping into Weiss as the larger agent also stood a bit too close.

The JTF ended up at a loss, the timer on the website winding down until only fourteen minutes remained. Putting all of their hope in Marshall Flinkman meant that everyone else had to wait and see what he came up with.

Kendall stood to Jack's left, the father with his arms crossed over his chest defensively as he tried to follow Marshall's movements, though he was too fast on the keyboard going from page to page and dialogue box to dialogue box.

"Okay. I got...well...something I guess," the techie announced as he leaned back in his seat.

"Good work, Marshall," Jack exhaled.

"Don't thank me yet. She's somewhere in the southwest of France. Maybe...maybe in the northeast of Italy. It's hard to tell with the signal jumping around. And," he paused, "I could be totally wrong. I'm trying to follow the signals path. The least degraded is the closest to the source. This is the strongest instance but...there's still some degradation."

“Somewhere within a hundred square miles? Maybe?” Michael tried to hide the growl from his voice, but was having a hard time withholding the anger at yet another failure on their part.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Vaughn, it’s...it’s as close as I can get right now.”

Jack set his hand to Marshall’s shoulder, “keep working at it. You’ll get there.”

He kept typing as folks moved to their desk, some making calls as others flopped tiredly into the rolling chairs.

Kendall sighed, “conference room, ten minutes,” he barked, gathering papers from where he had been working.

**…**

“It’s showtime, Sydney. How are you feeling? Are you excited?” Flynn popped back into the room setting his hand to her shoulder, her sudden intake of breath making him smile as he set fire to her skin. “Oops, sorry about that.”

His assistant joined and parked himself at the desk, fingers typing, and Flynn turned the camera to face the workstation table as he looked over at the other man with patient eyes. Glancing down at his watch he noted they had three minutes remaining.

“How many viewers do we have, Rob?” His voice was that sickly calm that set her nerves on edge. 

“Pushing 50,000, but I expect that number to get a lot higher once you start,” the techie said robotically in a high-pitched British accent as he clicked and typed. “Alright, you’ll go live in two-thirty and we’ll be in the control room if you need anything.” Hopping up he left the room, Flynn and Sydney alone as she lifted her brown eyes to meet his calm and calculated blue stare.

He smiled, “still trying to figure things out, love?”

“Just wondering what your resume looks like to make you the Alliance’s go-to torture expert.”

He raised his eyebrows seeing her engage him in actual conversation. “You know, after this first session I’d be happy to chat more with you about my intriguing past.”

“I’m fine with it staying as a curiosity,” she answered.

A sideways grin split his lips, “I like this new you. We’re going to get along famously.”

She butterflies danced in her stomach as she mentally counted down what she assumed was around two minutes. Off by only a few seconds, the watch beeped on his wrist and she spotted a red led light appear at the top of the camera.

“By now, most of you have been wondering if what I’d posted twenty hours ago was the truth, and I’ll assure you all that this is real. There’s just over 50,000 people watching at the moment, and while I expect to lose some that think this is a hoax, some that aren’t going to like when things get bloody, and some that genuinely lose interest, I know a core contingent will stick around. Maybe it’s a fetish. Maybe you know this person and are desperate to see if I’m lying. Either way, you’ve been waiting long enough so let’s get started.”

He waved a hand over the items on the table imitating a game show assistant, Sydney rolling her eyes off-camera. “I do love the classic tools of the trade. Various knives, needles, pliers...all right fun if I do say so myself. But my pièce de résistance is right here.” Pausing, he gestured to the battery box. “This device sends an electrical current through nodes adhered to the skin. No, it doesn’t shock; that’s amateur. This feels a bit like your whole body is a vibrating hum - quite annoying and uncomfortable after a while, but the effect makes every inch of skin a conduit for pain.”

“You know, it’s easier if I show you this effect.” he stepped from behind the table and turned the camera to face the woman trapped in the chair at the center of the floor. “This is Agent Sydney Bristow, an operations officer with the Central Intelligence Agency. Though, from their press conference hours ago, they’re not claiming her as an asset. But don’t worry, love, I’m sure they’re thinking of something.”

Her fiery brown eyes glared up at him, though he ignored her attempt to intimidate and followed the wires leading up to the nodes attached along her body. “This device works particularly well over long term use, and since Agent Bristow and I will be spending the whole week together, I’ll finally get to test my machine longer than a few minutes.” He placed his arms behind his back, hands clasped, and maneuvered around behind her. “It makes every instance of human contact pure misery, and it’ll only take a couple of days for the brain to adjust until it fears even the simplest of touches.” He slowly set his hands to her shoulders, Sydney unable to stop the pained grimace that flashed across her face, her eyes closing and jaw clenching.

Flynn grinned and pulled his hands away, “We might as well get started, shall we? Let’s talk, Sydney. I’m sure the people out there want to know more about you. How long have you worked with the CIA, love?”

Swallowing and opening her eyes back up she squared her jaw and stayed silent while throwing a particularly intense shade of hatred in his direction. He continued without her participation and grabbed a file folder off the table to flip through it.

“It says here that you were recruited when you were,” pause, “nineteen. Wow. How old are you now?"

Silence. 

Flynn sighed. "Twenty-five? Six?"

Silence.

The man smiled, though she saw malice behind his frosty blue stare as he set the folder down and made his way over to her side. Nothing in his body language or voice suggested that he was frustrated, but she saw the anger flicker in his eyes before it went away.

He walked his fingers up the side of her bicep and it was easy to see the muscles tense, the grimace on her face following her body’s reaction to try and lean away from his touch. The sturdy chair, however, and the fact that her arms were bound around the tall custom welded back made it so she couldn’t move far enough to escape and had to put up with the nerve-crackling pain as he touched her skin up to the side of her neck. 

She groaned an answer, "twenty-eight. I'm…I'm twenty-eight."

"So, almost ten years." He responded by instantly taking his hand away from her skin, Sydney panting slightly as the fiery burn turned slowly back into the annoying tingling vibration.

She closed her eyes refocusing her breathing, the special training at SD-6 on torture going through her head. _If you're caught, you have to be able to stall until help arrives. Your team will be looking for a way to get you out, so your best friend will be time and opportunity. They will try and bait you with easy, baseline questions and work their way up to the hard stuff because they think they have all the time in the world. Be stubborn on the easy ones only giving it up if you think you need to, because they'll escalate slowly if they think they’re breaking you._

Flynn moved back to the rolling chair to her right and crossed one leg over the other with body language open and unthreatening. He was still in view of the camera though Sydney was prominent on nearly the entirety of the right side, the angle zoomed in just below her feet and a few inches or so above her head.

“What’s your favorite color?”

She frowned. “Are you serious?” Flynn merely gave a sickeningly sweet smile. “Green,” she said with a growl at the back of her throat.

“Interesting.”

“Is it? Do you think this is what 50,000 people want to see?”

He leaned back, glancing at the screen, “212,000 as of right now. How long have you been actively trying to undermine my organization?”

She stayed silent. She knew that answering that question may make her timeline a bit easier to research on their end.

“Another one I can answer for you: eighteen months,” though the words were aggressive, the tone was low and calming.

She stayed quiet, her eyes rolling and looking around the room projecting an annoyed nonchalance.

“It says here that your father also works for the CIA. A mister,” he paused peeking back into the file, “Jonathan Bristow. Do you work together?”

No answer.

“Silence, eh? You know...you were right that over 200,000 people logged in to see me torture you. But why skip the foreplay, darling?"

Again, she stayed quiet, so Flynn set the folder down and followed up with: "How did your fiance die?"

She couldn’t hide her reaction and sent him a glare before facing forward just right of the camera. 

"Robbery, was it? Tisk," he clicked his tongue against his teeth. "That's a shame. Though, reading the police report, nothing was mentioned as stolen. Isn't that strange?"

She sighed and compartmentalized her thoughts keeping her face as blank as possible. Flynn saw this from the side and smiled softly, changing his voice and demeanor from upbeat and casual to soft and sympathetic.

"I found out what happened, Sydney. Do you want to hear about it?" He saw her jaw clench. It was minute and those watching through a screen probably didn’t notice, but he was far too good at his job to miss basic early details like the one she, as expected, just gave away.

She'd told him what he wanted to hear with her age, assuming like every good little spy with training and maybe a bit of practical experience under their belt that it would set a baseline. Once she gave that up, he decided to stop playing by the book and hit her with something emotional to open her back up. He knew it wasn't the physical torture she was going to have trouble enduring, though he was excited to challenge that part of her psyche over the next few days, it was the emotional prodding he was going to pummel her with first.

"That was when you first bucked against my organization, so we fired a literal warning shot." His words were smooth and soft, and she tried to push down the guilt that was bubbling up from her stomach into the back of her throat.

"Your friends and family don't know you killed him, do they? Does his? Does his mother know what you did? Sure...you didn’t pull the trigger, Sydney, but you _got_ him killed. Your job - the one thing you’re good at - murdered the man you love." He paused letting the words hang. "Everyone you know thinks it was still just a tragic accident. Unfortunately, you didn’t learn, did you? After you got _Danny_ killed, you kept interfering. Your patriotism is an inspiration."

Flynn stood back up and moved to her side. "You must not love your friends very much. Despite what you did to _Danny_ , you didn’t stop pestering us. Stealing our intelligence, killing our agents, undermining our influence. Because you're a fighter, aren't you, Sydney?" He set his hand gently on her shoulder and felt the muscles tighten below his warm palm. "One wasn’t enough, was it? You had to try to kill one of your closest friends as well." Rising he pulled his hand away, the bound woman breathing through her nose a few times as the pain ebbed.

"Maybe if you knew how to quit, so many people in your life would still be alive." He could see that her eyes were filled with tears and holding back emotions that she was trying desperately to compartmentalize. He also saw that she was finding it difficult with the introduction of the machine.

He softened to a whisper. "If they _aren’t_ watching, at least you don't have _their_ hate on top of your own." 

Drip. A single tear left her eye and rolled down her cheek, Flynn smiling as he continued.

**…**


	12. Be Careful What You Wish For

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [](https://www.flickr.com/photos/190971129@N06/50578562607/in/dateposted/)  
> 

“She looks...uninjured, all things considered.” A medical staff member spoke as Kendall pointed in their direction, and they went back to taking notes on a clipboard after giving the brief answer.

The Brit on the screen continued asking questions, some of which Sydney answered while others she refused by staying silent. Kendall pointed to another set of doctors on the opposite side of the table, one finishing up a sentence in an unreadable scrawl before speaking, “he’s clearly done his homework. Agent Bristow is easily manipulated because of her emotional connection to others. Infractions in both her SD-6 and CIA records show multiple instances where she threw training to the wayside when becoming emotionally compromised. He has access to at _least_ the Alliance’s information, but with this possible mole he may have our files as well.”

“Is she okay psychologically?” Someone at the table asked, nameless to the group standing in the back of the room.

“Agent Bristow is as okay as she can be. I mean, he’s affecting her with whatever that device is and then reinforcing the physical trauma with recounting painful suggestions and memories. Her profile suggests that this would be the easiest way to break her for information. If he hits her with more of this, she’s not going to stand much of a chance.”

“It’ll take more than that to break her,” Jack growled from the back of the room, all eyes turning in his direction. “Despite the - ethics surrounding it, I subjected Sydney to Project Christmas when she was a little girl. Whatever you may think of me now, the purpose of the program was to hardwire them against brainwashing. It _will_ take longer for him to break her, longer than he thinks. She can handle _much_ more, but we need to keep looking for an extraction solution.” Vaughn knew Jack well enough to know when he was frustrated, most of his experience having the frustration pointed in his direction. Right now, Jack was frustrated, but he was also furious.

Michael was mad too. This room of people suddenly came together to analyze Sydney during this public interrogation, but where were they before? Where were they when her hand gripped his at the pier after her father stood her up for dinner? Where were they to see the panic on her face when he’d told her of that same man being compromised in Havana, or the time Will was kidnapped, or the time when Marshall was taken? Where were they then when her eyes filled with tears and he had to comfort her in the dank confines of that hidden warehouse as they shared their sorrow learning the truth of her mother? These people didn’t know anything about Sydney Bristow other than the fact that she got caught. Who were _they_ to analyze anything about _her_?

The room went silent though the man in the projection kept talking. He once again set a hand on her shoulder as he read from a file, a psychologist pointing, “look there, her face. Every time he touches her it sets off that machine, but each time she’s had less and less of a reaction. She’s compartmentalizing everything well, I think.”

“She looks pissed,” Will said from his spot in the back, Vaughn nodding in agreement. While the doctors and everyone else focused on her reaction, what they could glean of body language, and compartmentalization, the pair of them were looking into her eyes, which were nearly black. The purse of her lips was a thin line as the muscle of her jaw flexed with each deep breath she took through flared nostrils. She was _furious_ , and the two men that knew her best noticed it together.

Much to their surprise, the psychologist countered his assessment. “I don’t think so, Mr. Tippen. It seems like she’s trying to control her emotions and not appear weak.” 

“You don’t even know her-” Vaughn started, Will grabbing his arm and cutting him off.

“You were sent to analyze what you see, but I’ve known Sydney for years. I mean, I live with her. I have no doubt that she’s...hiding her emotions, but...she’s pissed. Trust me,” he growled taking a breath before continuing. “Don’t sit here and think of her as some poor damsel in distress. There’s a reason this guy has her tied with cables to a welded metal chair. I know it, a few of you in here knows it, and that guy - that _son of a bitch_ \- he knows it too. Given half the chance she could kill him with her pinky.” 

“Mr. Tippen, you’re here because your knowledge is valuable, but if you can’t control yourself while watching you’ll get your information from printed reports outside this room, capisce?” Kendall fired back and the room fell silent.

The reporter-turned analyst held his hands up in apology leaning back against the wall. Vaughn patted his shoulder, green eyes meeting blue, and Will saw how thankful the agent was that he’d spoken up. While Vaughn knew the same things Will did, he wasn’t allowed to admit his closeness to Sydney, especially to the people in this room. Though, perhaps it didn’t matter any longer.

**…**

Flynn’s voice was getting on her nerves. It had been hours of questions, stories, answers, and his hands making contact with her charged, sensitive skin. Her muscles were sore from being on edge for so long, the tension of each caress, the flinch of each emotional barb wearing her down little by little.

Though she was nowhere near breaking, she wasn’t sure how many more days of this she could take before snapping and going full, as Francie would put it, sarcasti-bitch. Or maybe she’d just start honestly answering every question he asked. It would probably be a mix of the two to keep him guessing if what she was saying was true or just a retort trying to throw some kink into his routine.

“Did you know Noah Hicks? It says here that you worked together for a little while,” he paused looking back at the file, “seven years ago.”

She couldn’t keep her glare from meeting his steady blue stare and he grinned. “Ooh, did I hit another nerve? I knew Noah quite well - he never mentioned you though. We worked together in Shanghai about a year ago, actually, torturing this Yakuza for stepping into some of our production business. He was a top-quality assassin, best in the field.”

Flynn tossed the file back onto the table and made his way to her side. “How intimate was your relationship with him, Sydney? With that _assassin_ ,” he asked dragging a finger from her elbow up to her shoulder and keeping it sweeping in a slow, monotonous circle as she grimaced, the muscles of her arm tensing. 

“Or did you even know?” He slid his finger up her neck to the sensitive spot just behind her ear, her hair pulled back in a haphazard ponytail leaving a few tendrils around her shoulders. She tried pulling away but he kept fiery contact, her eyes closing at the effort to block out the pain. 

He faked a gasp, “Sydney, you didn’t even know. You didn’t know that he murdered people for a living. A few of them innocent people.” His voice took on a soft sensuality, “and using those same murderous hands, he touched you.” The fingertip made its way down the line of her jaw before he pulled it away, Sydney exhaling the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding and gasping a few deep breaths into her starving lungs and reopening her eyes to fix him with a furious nearly black stare.

“Why are you mad at me, _you’re_ the one that slept with him.”

“I’m also the one that killed him,” she growled. Though the pain thumped in her chest, it was less now than it was when she’d done it. Besides, right now she was angry, and if she held onto her anger, other emotions couldn’t crowd their way to the surface. He’d poked trying to bring her back to an emotionally raw state, but it had backfired because he wasn’t aware that she’d not only known about Noah’s hidden occupation but had knowledge Flynn was missing with regards to the man’s death.

Genuine surprise flitted across the Brit’s face, and though a mere fraction of a second later it was hidden, she saw. “I drove a knife through the heart of a man I _cared_ about.” She paused sitting tall in her seat, “which is why you have me tied down.” She lowered her voice to a growl, “you know _exactly_ what I’ll do to you if I get free, so you’d better make sure I die in this chair."

He let her hard words land, a grin crinkling smile lines next to his eyes. 

“There’s the Sydney Bristow I’ve read all about. Good of you to join us, darling. It only took,” he paused looking at the watch on his wrist, “six hours.”

She growled through dry lips, “be careful what you wish for.”

**…**

“See? Pissed,” Will commented in the silence of the conference room, Kendall glaring but not kicking him out. A lot of faces wore small smiles, each applauding the young agent for standing up to the man threatening her life. 

“She shouldn’t have done that,” Jack whispered, Vaughn and Will leaning in asking ‘why’ simultaneously. “ _He_ was in control with emotional manipulation.”

 _‘And when that stops working, the only other manipulation is physical.’_ Vaughn kept the words to himself, though he saw the same realization on Will’s face. “Shit,” he growled. 

For a fleeting second, he had been proud of her - proud that she’d all but threatened to drive a knife into the heart of a man that he himself wanted to skewer, but that pride was quickly being replaced by dread. _‘Can you watch her be beaten?’_ Michael honestly didn’t know if he could.

The voice crackled over the speaker, “that’s enough for today, love, don’t you think? Let’s pick it back up tomorrow. Ooh, Sydney look - almost half a million people watching. Isn’t that exciting?”

She glared a response and it was the last thing the room saw before the camera shut off and the stream ended. The gaggle of people stayed quiet, each of them feeling like an important connection had been severed. Like a child afraid of the dark, light illuminated the things they were afraid of, and the stream was their light into the dark confines of where she was being held. With it now extinguished, it was as if fear could go anywhere unseen. Anything could happen to Sydney after that camera turned off. If she didn’t appear on screen tomorrow they wouldn’t have a clue why.

“Alright, people. It was a light day but it gave us extra time to do some work. I want someone to keep an eye on that website, and the second they put a time up for the next broadcast you let everyone know. Vaughn and Tippin, check with Marshall and see if he’s narrowed things down a bit, and if any of you have contacts in France and Italy, I want you on the phone with them to see what assistance they can offer. This is being broadcast worldwide, this hits _everyone’s_ jurisdiction. Don’t let them tell you it doesn’t,” Kendall ordered, picking up his paperwork, and leaving the room.

**…**

Flynn didn’t say anything after the red light on top of the camera went off, and he turned his back on her making sure the stream was shut down. “You honestly surprised me with Hicks, Sydney.”

She stayed silent.

“I really hate surprises,” he growled. Turning back with smoldering blue eyes he took two large steps to her side and quickly wrapped his hand around her throat cutting off her oxygen. He panted through his nose, his body holding completely still as his fingers squeezed, Sydney unable to get away as her body panicked, a cold sweat breaking out and making her skin tingle. An added effect was the damn machine burning behind his grabbing hand, though that was pushed aside for the moment as the edges of her vision began to blur as everything faded to black. 

He squeezed a few extra seconds to ensure that she was fully unconscious, though he’d felt her pulse against his fingertips begin to slow. Her body took in several deep breaths when he abruptly let go, her head flopping limply to her chest.

“Jesus, Flynn,” his assistant growled walking in. “Keep yourself controlled on camera, at least.” Wheeling the cart aside and abandoning the syringe of sedative he no longer needed, he moved to the captive agent’s side.

“Fucking bitch,” he snarled making his way back to the desk and sitting down, lighting a cigarette and taking a deep drag before letting it rest in his fingertips, hands shaking with adrenaline. 

He watched with a glare as Rob and another assistant he hadn't bothered to learn the name of pulled off the sticky pads before undoing the clasps pinching the thick wire around her wrists and legs. Dragging her up from the chair and onto a rolling dolly reminiscent of the prop from Silence of the Lambs, they prepped her move to the cell down the hall. Looping and snapping the strap around her waist to keep her from tipping forward, Rob jerked the base with his foot and the pair made their way out of the room and down the hallway toward where she’d be spending her nights, Flynn putting out the cigarette and making his way slowly after them.

Her eyes cracked open seeing dim lights passing overhead, her fingers curling as she realized they’d left her limbs untied. This was the mistake she was hoping they would make, but hadn't factored on it happening so soon. It made sense that they would get cocky earlier rather than later. The moment they hit a doorway, Sydney and the assistant named Rob getting just past the entrance, she sprang into action and grabbed the man’s arm, twisting until she heard the radius and ulna snap.

His scream was cut off as she swung her arm, the side of her hand chopping into his throat and making the associate drop to the floor with choking gasps trying to figure out what painful part to clutch. Undoing the clasp digging into her stomach she fell to her knees off the dolly, her legs having been stationary for over 24 hours and making the muscles strain in their inability to hold her upright. 

Hands grabbed her from behind so she threw a sharp elbow connecting with some part of Flynn’s face, his curse and groan announcing it was him before he let her go. Another man shouted as he charged into the room, Sydney pushing herself up against her protesting muscles as adrenalin slammed through her veins. Staggering to her feet she redirected the punch he tossed wildly and opened her palm to slap it flat against the man’s ear. He cried out holding the side of his face, and she kicked at his leading leg connecting with his kneecap and forcing it the wrong way against the joint. Another screaming guard hit the floor. The door was right there, and it was open.

Her forward momentum was yanked abruptly back as fingers wrapped tight around her upper arm. It jolted her arm at the shoulder and whipped her around before his fist connected with her right cheekbone sending her back to her knees as her vision momentarily doubled.

He kicked hard into her ribs knocking her the rest of the way to the floor, and as she lay gasping a weight settled over her thighs as she was pinned. Reaching up she grabbed at his face, her fingernails clawing at his jawline, and Flynn snarled knocking her hands away while leaning his weight back to keep her hips from bucking him off.

Another brain-blurring shot, this time from the back of his hand, split her lower lip on the left side. Blood sprayed from her mouth as he wrapped both his hands around her throat looming above her with fierce rage in his dark blue eyes and blood dripping onto her chest from the broken nose she’d given with her elbow.

He pulled her head up a bit before slamming it back down to the cement, her clawing hands wet with his blood falling away from his face before she threw another elbow, though weak, against his already broken nose. He responded with another backhand to the same side of her already aching mouth then another punch to the ribs with his left followed by a blow to the right side of her temple with the opposite balled fist. She expected the abuse to continue raining down but other shouting men pulled him off of her near-limp body. Coughing and spitting blood out of her mouth she rolled to her side holding her ribs.

Her vision was blurry but she could tell they’d had to drag him out of the room as he cursed and yelled, two staying behind to heft her up and over to the cot. She was too tired to fight back and offered little resistance as they used zip ties to cinch her wrists to the legs at the top and ankles on the other end. Leaving behind bloody footprints as they gathered their wounded comrades, the heavy metal door slammed shut behind them.

Sydney turned her head to the side to spit a mouthful of blood onto the edge of the metal cot and floor, a raspy laugh bubbled up from her chest and echoed in the darkness. If she didn’t get away, at least she’d spilled some blood while trying.

**…**


	13. Twenty-Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [](https://www.flickr.com/photos/190971129@N06/50578596102/in/dateposted/)

She woke in a groggy haze, the light blinding her sensitive eyes making them slam closed a moment after opening. Someone was rubbing a rough washcloth at a couple of spots caked with dried blood on her chest before adhering the sticky pads to their previous locations, the barely-wet cloth leaving the skin a stinging red. Trying to look around she felt the familiar metal of the chair and realized she was back in the dreaded room.

“Good morning,” a nasally voice said from across the room.

She squinted in his direction and noticed black rings hanging under his eyes and a bandage hiding a gash over the bridge of his nose, a bit of dried blood lingering around both nostrils. A genuine dimpled smile hit her sore face at the sight he made juxtaposed against the immaculate three-piece suit. “You’re the prettiest thing I’ve seen all day,” she slurred against the drugs they’d likely given her, fighting the sleepy lack of use of her voice.

“Only because you don’t have a mirror in your cell,” Flynn growled.

“You can't be too mad," she sighed, "I did warn you.” Running her tongue over the sore gash on her lower lip, knew she couldn’t have made any prettier of a sight. While her hands were secured back behind her, she didn’t need her prodding fingertips to feel the swelling of her lip, right cheekbone under her eye, and the soreness in her right eyebrow. “Are you going to tell the truth when the stream starts? Own up to your mistake?”

Flynn smiled. “Imagine all your friends and family seeing you bloody, bruised, and beaten. They’ll realize that when this camera turns off, your torture doesn’t end. Don’t get me wrong, you busted Rob and Dave up sumthin’ fierce, and I do have a delightful day of payback coming your way for _this_ ,” his gesture to the broken nose made her grin again.

“When’s showtime? Wouldn’t wanna...disappoint your fans.” She groaned and shifted in the chair slightly, her aching ribs reminding her that one or two were at least cracked.

Flynn chuckled and flipped on the machine before walking past, the uncomfortable buzzing shooting through her skin. “See you in five hours,” he whispered running the back of his bruised fingers gently across her swollen right cheek, the fiery tingle burning her nerves.

“Can’t wait,” she sighed behind gritted teeth.

**…**

“He’s late,” Kendall grumbled as he sat in the office chair at the front of the room. It was nearly the same crowd from the day before, though a few less meant the whole team had a seat at the table.

Will hurried in last, his hair wet from the lower floor showers, and Vaughn thought that was a good idea. Sure he had deodorant and cologne in his locker, but it was only doing so much to mask the almost 40-hour stint he’d spent at the office with a majority of time spent running around. Looking at his watch he realized Kendall was right, and a million questions zinged through his brain at the same time. 

Michael was too tired to focus on any one question, the myriad threatening to drown him. Once again, he felt the lack of sleep tugging at his body and he wasn’t sure how much longer fear and adrenaline would carry him. He _had_ gone to the lower levels when sent by Kendall to get some rest, but only managed to power nap for less than a half-hour before incessant worry pulled him from the uncomfortable bed and back to his desk, the spare suit in his locker rumpled and stale.

Five minutes passed, then ten. The countdown had been at 0:00 the whole time and the people in the room began to chat back and forth inserting theories over what it could mean. Twelve more agonizing minutes went by before the stream started, the group audibly shocked to see Flynn’s bruised face as he started speaking.

“Whoever trains your field agents has my admiration. I apologize for running a bit behind schedule, but I had to wait for two new assistants to arrive. You see my _previous_ assistants made mistakes, but as you will see, I handled the situation.” The man was sporting a bandage over his nose and two fresh black eyes, his closeness to the camera ensuring that everyone watching could see the painful swell to the bridge and the dried blood along the rim of each nostril. A feminine chuckle from off-camera made him roll his eyes.

“She’s quite proud of herself. Giving credit where it’s due, she wasn’t kidding when she boasted about what she’d do if she got free. Rob’s radius and ulna were spirally fractured beyond recognition, not to mention the crushed larynx. And Dave? Well...he’ll probably never walk right again since knees aren’t supposed to bend that way.” Flynn stepped out of frame and it slowly turned the camera to face the smiling woman in the metal chair. The bruises that adorned her face, neck, and arms were glaringly opposite from her jovial demeanor, some hidden behind the dried blood left stuck to her skin.

Flynn walked to her side and stood with his hands clasped tightly behind his back, feet a shoulder-width apart. “Isn’t that right, Sydney? You feel right good about yourself, don’t you love.” 

She reopened her eyes to squint, the right a little more closed than the left, and looked up at him with a crooked smile offset from the slightly swollen bottom lip, “I think it makes you look like a working professional.”

He moved faster than she could follow, his right fist slamming into her stomach just below her ribs and pushing the air from her lungs in a whoosh. Some in the conference room turned away from the screen, her gasping pants over the speakers chasing them and not letting them get completely away from the violence.

He was silent for a few moments waiting for her to catch her breath. She tilted her head in Flynn’s direction without making eye contact. “You know,” she started with a pained groan as her ribs loosened. “Your...nose whistles when...you talk.” Following it up with a chuckle for dramatic effect she looked into the camera. “Can you hear the whistle?”

His fist shot out and connected with her already damaged cheekbone, the blunt crease only needing the barest of invitation to start bleeding again as fresh blood streamed down her cheek to her lips due to the angled dip of her head.

Vaughn could taste the bile rising in the back of his throat as his eyes diverted to the surface of the table instead of the projected video. The anger he felt for Flynn was being to compound upon itself into genuine hatred.

“Uh oh,” Will whispered, Jack and Michael leaning in as he sat between them.

“What?” The stoic father asked.

“Mister Tippin? Care to share with the class?” Kendall spoke up as eyes turned in his direction. Flynn had gone back to standing at still attention, though moved to her other side. Her head was low, chin nearly against her chest as she fought the pain from her already sore ribs and face.

“This is her stubborn side. It comes out when she wants to pick a fight and honestly, it drives me crazy. I can’t imagine what it’s going to do to this guy.”

Kendall fixed him with tired grumpy eyes from across the conference room table, the psychologist speaking from his right, “while not clinical, I agree with Mr. Tippin. Agent Bristow seems more defiant today. It could stem from a few different places, but seeing the state she’s in this morning suggests that things don’t end once the camera is turned off, which is something we feared. She’s either given up and is trying to goad him into killing her-”

“Doubtful,” Will countered, though the woman continued.

“-or more likely, she’s trying to get him to lose control and make a mistake. It’s clear she thinks she has the upper hand right now, and the man is reacting with physical abuse instead of trying to put her back off-kilter with mind games. This suggests that he is prone to fits of rage which could be information she gathered last night while the cameras were off.”

“You mean while they beat her?” Vaughn growled.

Kendall jumped in, “from the sound of things, she held her own and put two of them out of commission; that’s not too shabby. I’m inclined to agree with Mister Tippin. Sydney hasn’t given up, in fact, she’s digging in her heels. It’s what I’d do if I were in that chair.”

"Come now, Sydney, we don't have time for this, darling. I have a whole series of new questions to ask you today."

She shook the stars from her vision as the blood charted a new path to her chin before dripping to her chest and getting lost in the already stained maroon tank top.

"Don't let me...keep you from anything...important," she panted, opening and closing her jaw a few times with a grimace.

"Have you ever been to the compound of Vladimir Pachenko?"

Sydney balked at the sudden change of subject. "Yeah, being a spy doesn't get me into as many cool parties as you might think."

He rolled his eyes. "It says here that you infiltrated his compound about four weeks ago to acquire intelligence, but failed in your mission."

Kendall barked pointing at an analyst, "get me those mission details."

"Oh, _that_ Pachenko."

"Sydney," Flynn warned with a flash of his angry blue eyes. "You failed that mission."

She paused a moment in the conversation to lift her head up, the blood forming a new trail taking the path of least resistance. "Define failed."

He raised his eyebrows and slowly trekked back to her side. "You failed to get the intelligence you were sent in to get."

"Yes."

"Do you fail often?"

"I still had a lovely weekend out of the office."

Will leaned into Michael's arm, "you may want to wipe the grin off your face; keep in mind you're viewing a live-streamed torture session no matter how nice that weekend actually was."

"Did you have access to Pachenko's office when you were in the compound?"

Sydney stayed silent, her face turned away as a frown creased her forehead. It looked like she was trying to think, but the man knew better. Flynn reached out and pressed his thumb hard against her still-bleeding cheekbone. She groaned and glared up at him.

"Were you in his office, love?"

Wiping the blood from his thumb on her bare shoulder, the touches igniting her skin, she growled passed pursed lips, "I don't remember." 

Sydney was worried by this change in attitude. She’d seen it in his eyes; he had been getting frustrated and angry. So she kept pushing, hoping to make him snap and keep a little control for herself, even though that meant the actual person in control would beat the crap out of her. But now he seemed at ease. His face was unreadable, even his eyes, and his once tense shoulders were now relaxed as he walked the room with light steps.

"It says here," picking up the file, "that the intel was in his office. You wrote in your report that you searched but didn’t find it because you were found out by security. So that means you were in his office. Did you see any maps?"

"Oh shit," Vaughn said aloud, people turning at his sudden, albeit quiet, outburst. 

"Elaborate, Mr. Vaughn," Kendall ordered, the analyst running back in and handing the director the mission folder.

"She...she was injured and didn't access the office for the intel."

"She got something though, I remember that. If she didn't get the intel, who did?"

"I did. I was there, but it was filed as an SD-6 solo mission. That's why it was easy for her to tell them she didn't get the intel, easier after the surprise by the security guard."

"What are you saying?"

Jack frowned, "this means my daughter doesn't have the information they’re looking for, but the report she gave to Sloane suggests otherwise."

"Vaughn, would you recognize it if he asked for something specific?"

"Maybe? I don't have a photographic memory, she does. She said she was in that room and that's the information he's going to try and get from her. That’s what they want - she got access to the EMP weapon and didn’t give it up. They waited until she withheld something they thought was critical. Who knows _how_ long you’ve both been compromised - that timeline is officially shot." Michael tossed his pen aggressively onto the notepad and flopped back dejectedly in his seat.

Flynn's voice had a slightly higher timber as he asked, "Sydney, you were so talkative earlier, what happened?"

She swallowed a bit before replying trying to choose her words carefully. "It also says in that report that I was stabbed in the leg." 

"Yes, but your profile says you have a photographic memory. While in the office, did you notice a map?"

Sydney turned her head to try and face him, but he was at an angle where she wasn't able to see, only knowing that he was somewhere behind her. 

"Do you know how hard it is to remember details about an office when I wasn't there to remember details about an office? While bleeding and limping?"

Flynn nodded slowly and made his way back over to the table on her left. "Why are you stalling, love? Are you hiding something from me?"

“I’m hiding a _lot_ from you,” she poked, and his eyes darkened. Just the response she wanted.

“Do you want me to be more aggressive to discover those hidden things?” His back was to the camera which meant that the predatory glint in his eye was just for her, but he folded his hands behind his back showing a small knife to the camera, knowing those watching would react while the restrained agent stayed oblivious.

She tisked through her teeth as the people in the conference room held their breath. "He's a general in the Russian army. Of course there were maps."

Flynn sent her a thankful smile. "Do you recall seeing any maps outside of Russia?”

Sydney was beginning to feel nervousness rise from her stomach to her heart, the tempo increasing. His face was blank, his posture was unthreatening, his body wasn’t tense, but his eyes looked like a jackal about to pounce on helpless prey. “I wasn’t there for a map.”

Even his returning smile was predatory, his ears picking up the waver in her voice. “What _were_ you there for?”

Silence.

“Let me rephrase. You were there for details on a weapon. Can you tell me about it?” His fingers, still clutched behind his back, moved the knife handle into his palm, the blade glinting in the light.

She sighed trying to convey annoyance instead of worry, “you read the report, why are you asking me?”

Flynn finally moved, his path circling the chair slowly with an air of nonchalance. Her eyes followed as far as possible until he moved out of her periphery. “It does sound fascinating, doesn’t it? EMP bombs the size of a cell phone.”

She stayed quiet. He circled the room once more before startling her and everyone watching as he moved at lightning speed, a burning slam hitting her upper right arm. She screamed through her teeth and looked to see a small knife jutting out from her bicep, the electric vibration in her skin making the thin metal hum. It had hit the bone and he’d left it in place to be a constant throb.

The JTF conference room exploded with angry shouts at the suddenness of the attack on their Agent, Kendall’s hoarse voice ordering them to be quiet as Flynn started speaking, his tone gentle and low as the stunned woman panted with eyes focusing on the knife in her arm.

“Oh, I’m sorry, that’s right. You can’t think straight when you’ve been stabbed,” he said with no emotion in his voice, his fingers wrapping around the handle and yanking the blade out, a warm jet of blood running down her arm to drip to her hands tied behind the chair. A pained groan left her lips, as she glared up at him.

“Better? Any details you’ve suddenly remembered?”

She thought for a moment about how bad she wanted things to get, deciding to double down as anger rose from the pain and shock, “still a little fuzzy...sorry. Y...you might have to jog my memory some more.”

An inch below the first wound, the knife bit her skin again, though not to the bone. He didn’t leave it in place this time, a quick in and out as another half inch puncture sliced through her muscle and bled into the preexisting stream. She cried out with a grimace breathing quickly through thin lips to push the pain away as fast as possible.

Will rose and left, Vaughn wanting desperately to follow him but something held him firmly rooted to his chair, his legs refusing to cooperate. Kendall let the analyst go as he sat back down and covered his mouth with one hand, elbow propped on the other arm crossed over his chest.

“Vaughn...tell me you remember that map,” he asked behind his hand before turning to see the pain written on the agent’s down-turned face.

Through a shuddering breath, “I...uh...took pictures of his desk...maybe - maybe it was one of those,” he said softly.

“Get me those pictures,” Kendall ordered the analyst, the young man happy to leave the room and go on a file run.

Flynn was back to circling his captive in slow rounds and watching with feigned interest as she compartmentalized his attacks, but she could see that the knife in his hand was coated with blood as he passed by. 

Getting a good look she noted it was only about an inch long and less than that wide, definitely not a weapon you’d threaten someone with in a dark alley, but he’d found a sick use for it. It wasn't thick or wide enough to do any serious damage without a lot of effort, but it could definitely poke holes.

“Sydney, I need you to think, love. When you were busy _not_ finding details about an EMP weapon, did you see something marked on a map outside of Russia? A location perhaps?” 

“No,” she ground out between deep breaths. 

The man stepped closely behind her and dragged the blade lightly across her skin in a tingle from her shoulder to a spot under her right collarbone. 

“Really? You don’t remember seeing anything about a secondary location?” Increasing pressure, the wicked sharpness of the well-cared-for blade broke the skin loosing a pearl of blood, Sydney panting through her nose in an attempt to prepare herself for the pain.

“I...can't tell you what I...don't know.”

He pushed the blade through her skin agonizingly slow and with a calm, steady, practiced hand, and she clenched her teeth while squeezing her eyes closed. It didn’t take long until it was to the handle in her flesh. Leaving it in place, he set his hands to her shoulders flaring the lightning pain up her neck and down both arms, the harsh breaths she was taking causing the blade to wiggle, the split skin protesting each tiny movement.

“That’s unfortunate. I’m fairly disappointed.”

“Aren’t we all,” she growled, making him chuckle.

“Tell me about the weapon.”

“I’m...I’m not gonna do that...no matter how many holes you poke.”

“I know you found what you were looking for. I know you got the intel, and I know the prototype went missing from Russian headquarters about a week later. What you _don’t_ know is that there are two prototypes. I need the information from that map, which I know you’ve seen, to find the second one. So where would I find it?”

“Find what?” Countering with angry brown eyes she met his icy blue stare.

“Tisk, tisk, tisk,” he clicked as he grabbed the knife and pulled it free, blood running and soaking into her tank top.

“How many of these do you think you can take?”

She sighed, “let’s see how fast your arm gets tired.”

Two hours later the conference room was almost empty, those without the stomach for the intensity on the screen leaving to busy themselves on other tasks. Only a few remained, though they were being pushed to the limit of what they could take. 

Jack sat alone, Vaughn knocking the chair backward and stalking from the room with tears wet on his cheeks as it all became too much nearly an hour earlier, ten or twelve stabs ago.

Flynn wasn't talking at the moment, nor was anyone on their end, so the sound of her ragged breathing and pained, breathy sobs was all that filled the room. Jack felt that pain in his soul and he found his eyes memorizing the pattern of grain in the wood of the conference table he'd never bothered to notice before.

His eyes finally made their way back to the screen where she sat pale and drained, the wounds dripping to the drain below the chair leaving the ends of her hands and feet slick with blood.

When the Brit finally spoke it was quiet, almost reverent. "No one, Sydney," he paused, "no one has made it past a dozen without talking. I really applaud you, love, twenty-two is impressive. A record for us both, likely."

His hand was wet with blood, and he set the knife on the table to pick up a rag and mechanically wipe at his fingers and palms. He still wore that same blank expression, though his eyes weren't flashing any longer.

"If you tell me what they need, Sydney, I won't have to do this anymore." He was almost believable.

Her head hung low and her tear-filled eyes were unfocused as she breathed in pained, shallow gasps.

"This isn't going to kill you. We can do this again tomorrow if you'd like, but I'd much rather you tell me what you saw on that map."

He moved to the table and turned off the machine, her body visibly relaxing as the current vibrating her skin and lighting up each puncture went away. Slowly making his way to crouch before the chair, he looked up at her pale face. The bruises shone a nasty purple and the blood lines from her cheekbone were dry and cracking.

“Why go through this, darling? Tell me what they want. Isn't it your job to survive as long as possible?”

Her eyes refocused, her mind snapping back from wherever it had been trying to escape, and it brought her back to the present. 

"Keeping things from you...is my job.” Her voice was a quiet murmur but the honesty and sincerity in her voice made even Flynn pay attention. “ _T_ _his_ ... _is_ my job,” she winced and panted against the pain radiating through her body, “I signed up for this.”

Kendall snapped a finger at the technical assistant sitting in the corner of the room, pale and trying his best to keep his eyes off the screen, “put this on speaker.” Despite his turbulent stomach and frayed nerves, he jumped into action.

“Where, sir?”

“Everywhere.”

Will heard the crackle of the speaker in the hallway come to life, Francie tucked against his side finally sleeping after the two cried and talked for the last couple of hours. He knew what it was before anyone spoke, the pained, feminine breathing all too familiar.

In the hallway outside the conference room, unable to move farther away and with backside and legs asleep from the hour-long stint on the floor, Michael closed his eyes as he listened. The beehive-like activity in the Rotunda stopped as the multitude of televisions shone with a dozen news stations with the media's hyperbolic coverage of "America's Finest Trapped" and "Red White and Blue Under Siege" sat ignored.

The only thing he heard was her harsh breathing and surprisingly steady, pain-laced, and stilted words.

Tears refilled and spilled turning into red streaks down bloody paths to her chin. She turned her head a bit with a grimace and spit a mouthful of blood to the floor, her tongue unable to stop prodding at the stab he'd pierced through her left cheek. Meeting his curious blue eyes she hit him with a fierce brown stare.

Her words came between pained breaths in a voice weak but clear. “Did you think that...I just forgot...that what I signed up for came with risk? I knew...I knew this could happen.” She swallowed the lump rising in her throat, her chin quivering. “I don’t have regrets and...I’m not scared.”

“You’re not scared to die?” Flynn matched her gentle tone, but his words lacked pain-filled emotion.

Despite everything, a small smile hit her pale lips. “I’m sitting here...because I did...I did a good job.”

“Good? You got _caught_ , love. Good spies don’t get caught.” Flynn was trying to regain the upper hand, but he was realizing that breaking her would be much more difficult than he was led to believe.

“The amount,” wince, “of damage I’ve done to your organization is...staggering. I’ve compromised whole...branches of your sick...terrorist family tree. Don’t think I’m not good at...what I do, your face probably _still_ hurts and that...nose whistle,” she chuckled darkly, spitting another bit of blood out from where it swirled around her tongue. “They...couldn’t... _bear_ to have me out there for one...more...day. Because...they’re the ones that...that are scared.”

“Scared of what? Of you?” He scoffed, an edge slipping into his voice that Sydney heard.

“Can...can I ask you a question?” She saw that he wasn’t prepared for that particular request.

“Sure, love,” he grinned leaning back against the wooden desk and crossing his feet at the ankles. If she wanted her moment, he was going to give it to her. 

“How much?”

He frowned, though the smile didn’t leave his mouth, “what?”

“H-how much?”

Realization dawned. “For you?”

The nod was slight, the punctures in the muscles of the crook between neck and shoulder throbbing at the movement, but she did it anyway.

“One million.”

Sydney smiled and broke eye contact, her head dropping a bit with the effort to hold it up. “You...you don’t pay a million dollars to...to kill someone bad at their job.”

Flynn rose and made his way back to her side, his movement methodical as he dragged his thumb across two of the wounds on her left upper arm, the blood that had begun to coagulate breaking free and flowing once more. “You think you’re going to win with a monologue, Sydney?”

She groaned, squeezing her eyes tightly closed, Flynn sighing and flopping into the chair.

"Who do you think you're really protecting, love? I have all the information I need to make the lives of your friends a living nightmare. Hell; I can get them here in a few hours to join you. Would you tell me the location on the map then? If I took my knife to Will or Francie? Your father?" His tone was slightly frustrated but his body language was casual as he slouched in the chair and stuck his legs out, ankles crossed. He folded his hands over his stomach and regarded her with honest eyes.

Sydney looked back up and he expected her patented Bristow glare of intimidation, but instead she wore a slight grin, her eyes sparkling.

"I already told you that I...knew the risks. They're as far...out of your reach as...the intel I won't give up."

"Then what have you got to lose?" The question was asked in an insolently flippant tone, Flynn lifting his hands to slowly pick at the dried blood beneath his fingernails.

Sydney sighed, regretting it, as overwhelming pain made her grimace and groan with tightly closed eyes. When they reopened a few moments later he recognized the steely resolve and knew she was never going to give him what he needed. Well, what Alain needed; Flynn didn't give a shit about the intel.

"What do...do you think they want with...tiny bombs?" Her glare was pointed.

"How should I know?"

Sydney minutely shook her head. "There's...no way in hell I'm gonna give you intel that will," gulp, "crash planes and...trains...buses."

He was frustrated. He thought he should just end the stream for the day. Maybe he'd leave her to sit in the room until morning. With the amount of damage she had taken in the last two hours, she'd be in pure agony by then, of that he was certain.

_'Would that work, though? Sydney Bristow seems unbreakable.'_

“So what then, love? Are we truly at an impasse?”

Sydney took a few panting breaths before meeting his eyes. "I won't break for you. I won't bend to them. I won't put inn...innocent people at risk to save myself. This...I know what that means and I...I don't care."

"Even if it means you never have to see me again?"

She laughed, though regretted it as a sharp stab from her ribs and radiating pain from the punctures in her abdomen made her face contort. “I’m not leaving this room. You know it...I know it.” She paused and swallowed a moment before looking straight into the camera, her voice watery, “and that’s okay. It's...it's okay.” 

She let out a quick breath with a grimace and more tears ran hot down her pallid cheeks, her skin pale and making the red and rusty brown color of fresh and old blood stand out.

“I’d expect nothing less, darling,” Flynn said quietly. “Why spend another day with me? Just...give me what I want and I’ll end this whole thing.” Rising, he reached into the desk, opened a drawer, and pulled out a handgun. Cocking it, he was at her side in an instant, the barrel to her forehead and his finger on the trigger. “Tell me the location on the map and all of this,” he started, the pointer finger of his other hand running over several of the seeping wounds making her flinch and whimper, “all of this goes away.”

Sydney met his eyes, feeling the cold bite of the barrel as it pushed against her forehead, and her response was to spit blood at him. It splattered along his fancy and likely expensive pant legs before dripping down onto his shining shoes.

She turned her eyes to look directly into the lens of the camera. “I'm not giving you _anything_ .” She paused to catch her breath. “I sit...between you...and the people I love,” she said in a resolved whisper, looking back up and meeting his gaze with fiery determination as she did her best to sit up straight despite the bone-deep ache in her entire body. “I’ll protect them till I die. Because... _that’s_ my job. And I’ll be _damned_...if I’m gonna quit before you.”

Flynn nodded with a sigh, the hand holding the firearm flopping down to his side. Moving to the camera and obscuring half of the shot with his body he held his finger to hover over the button. 

"We'll try again tomorrow," he said confidently as the stream shut down and the projector went blank.

**…**

A light tap against the door pulled him from his lack of slumber, Vaughn getting up with a tired groan from the desk where papers were scattered as he searched for answers. He was surprised to see Jack Bristow standing with a bottle of Tennessee Whiskey in one hand and two ice-filled glasses in the other.

"Can we come in?" the man asked without his usual stoicism, though Michael noted the deep bags under his eyes and the fact that he looked ten years older than he had two days earlier.

Stepping back, he invited him in. The door clicked behind the pair and Vaughn flopped back into the uncomfortable office chair while Jack settled on the edge of the bed. The first drinks were poured and sipped, minutes ticking by as the two sat in quiet contemplation.

"I...I feel like I abandoned her today."

"Vaughn-"

"I left because...I...” Simultaneously they finished the first cup with a large, hard swallow. “I thought I could be stronger.”

Jack nodded, refilling both glasses. "I should have joined you. There’s...regret on both sides.”

They drank in silence for a few moments, the young man’s eyes trained on the stark white floor giving Jack ample time to evaluate the agent. The ever-present worry lines were etched into his forehead, his green eyes dull and glazed above dark circles.

"You should go home-" he stopped his suggestion as the younger man shook his head.

They shared another bout of quiet, both in thought, their eyes finally catching and Jack could easily read the guilt in the jade depths.

"This wasn't you, Vaughn."

Pain flickered behind his fear. "You don't know that."

Jack sighed, “we can’t both of us take the blame.”

Michael reached out and clinked his glass against Jack’s, “sure we can.” They went back to drinking the burning liquid and for once the silence wasn't awkward.

 _'Maybe you got through to him in the warehouse. I mean...he’s kind of left you alone since then.’_ Vaughn thought.

Jack shook his head. “It should be me in there and her here. I’ve been the bigger thorn in their side...a greater betrayal. I’m an old man,” the father mumbled into his nearly empty cup, the ice cube rattling against the glass.

Vaughn’s eyes became watery again as he polished off the second glass, Jack leaning over to refill without asking for permission, which the younger wasn’t refusing.

“I should have...come to you after Russia, Jack; I should have been honest about...everything.” 

“It wasn’t Russia that compromised her, Vaughn, she was made long before anything happened in that cabin.”

The elder saw that his words were falling on deaf ears. Thinking for a moment as the whiskey dulled his heartache a little, he leaned forward on his elbows. The wrinkled and rolled sleeves of the button-up pushed against the crook of his arms, their suit coats left who knows where in the JTF well over a day ago.

"Danny called me before...before he asked Sydney to marry him." The sip burned his tongue. "I'd known she was seeing someone, but I didn't know it was serious until he called. Yes," he drawled, "it was because I didn't ask, but that was just the unfortunate nature of my relationship with my daughter."

Vaughn finished the cup and wiggled it asking for another, Jack smiling softly and refilling it before topping off his own.

"How did that go?" The young agent's words were slightly slurred.

"I ripped him open. I think he would have shit his pants if it was in person."

Michael shook his head wearing a crooked smile, "why'd you do it?"

Jack's face fell a little bit. "Because who was _he_ to think he was good enough for _my_ daughter?" Steely blue met timid green, the younger breaking away to stare at his glass as the older kept his eyes fixed.

"When I figured out what the sideways glances, shallow, corner-office conversations, and the brushing hands in the hallway meant between you and Sydney, I fully expected that same anger. I assumed I would follow you to the parking lot, pick you up by the scruff of your neck, and drill you the same way I had done Danny and, truthfully, every other boyfriend she's ever had," Jack grumbled, but when Vaughn finally had enough courage to look up, all he saw was a soft smile and surprisingly gentle eyes.

Jack continued. "Even after trying to scold you in the warehouse, I never really felt that anger toward you." He saw the young man frown in confusion.

"Michael...you're the only man in Sydney's life that's never betrayed her. You reminded me of that weeks ago. She trusts you completely because you give her reason. Your trust is why she doesn’t regret anything."

Vaughn scoffed, though Jack using his first name put him slightly off-kilter. "Bullshit, you probably still wanna wring my neck," he slurred a bit finishing the liquor in his cup.

Jack chuckled as he finished his own and screwed the lid back onto the bottle. "You've been in love with her since she stepped foot into your office, Vaughn, and that was always obvious yet difficult for me to understand. Every...single...time I pushed against your decisions was because…you were thinking of _her_ , and I was thinking of the mission." A tear traveled down his cheek, Michael looking away from his intense stare.

"You've always put her first, and that's how I know _this_...wasn't you." 

Vaughn felt his limbs get heavy as the room spun. He looked at the glass and spotted remnants of something floating in the last few drops among the cubes 

"Jack, what...what did-" Vaughn slurred and tried to stand, failing.

"I'm sorry Vaughn, but you've been up for over thirty hours." The father's tone was apologetic, but also unbending. He caught the agent by the shoulders as he tipped forward.

Setting him down on the edge of the bed Jack wasn't prepared for the sobs that wracked the drooping shoulders.

"No, Jack. I...I didn't get to say...say goodbye. If she...dies and I'm not there…" his eyes were rolling back as Jack pushed him down.

The moment the blonde head hit the pillow he was asleep, Jack pulling off the shoes and yanking the blanket up to his shoulders.

Patting him on the chest, "see you tomorrow, son."

**…**


	14. The Red Light & Round Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [](https://www.flickr.com/photos/190971129@N06/50578481026/in/dateposted/)  
> 

Every inch of her body was a mind-numbing ache, and she took respite in the fact that they’d left her untied on the metal cot in her cell. The rise and fall of each breath set off the four stab wounds scattered around her abdomen and the single puncture under her collar bone, so she tried keeping them as shallow as possible. Lifting her arms was too difficult, the spots where Flynn had sunk the blade making the muscles protest sharply, so she just laid there. She had no concept of time, but was fairly sure that each session with Flynn amounted to a day, so they must be going into the third day. The three longest days she'd ever had, but still only three days.

Her biggest worry at the moment was holding out. She could keep information from him for at least four more days, that shouldn’t be hard. He came into their sessions sure of himself to a fault, but as he failed to get any meaningful information from her, his most simple task, he’d become increasingly violent. Apparently gone were the hours of mind-numbing questions and baited emotional attacks. It felt strange to miss them, but anything may be better than the poke-a-thon he’d subjected her to yesterday, or whatever passage of time ago that had been.

Managing to rise with groans and sobs, she relieved herself in the corner of the room before stumbling back to the cot and gingerly lying back down on the cold metal. It was surprisingly refreshing, Sydney finding herself dozing here and there but never getting any real sleep. The growling of her stomach reminded her that it had been days without food or water, a fact that would begin to make things harder as time dragged on.

Eventually, the thin beam of light coming under the door was broken, feet on the other side, and the heavy metal unlocked and swung open.

_'Round three. Let’s do this.’_

**…**

One of the new assistants kept his eye on her as he dragged her off the dolly and into the dreaded chair. The room smelled of blood and sweat, the metal below the seat flecked with a dried deep brown color looking more like spilled paint than what she knew it to be. 

They’d entered and administered a mild paralytic before using a surgical staple gun to close the punctures from the day before. The inability to move didn’t dull the pain of the process as the men wiped at each wound with a wet, rough cloth and then clicked the gun against the newly bleeding slit. The pressure and stab of each staple made her groan almost every time, the tears soaking into the hair at her temples as she lay paralyzed on the cot.

Still, she could see the fear in their eyes at the fact that she was untied, the knowledge of why _they_ were there as opposed to the previous assistants edging out any sense of security. They didn’t visibly relax until her hands were roughly pulled back into position and the cable tightened into place just above her wrists, the same for her legs as they were reattached separately to the front supports of the chair.

They scampered off when finished, Sydney’s head lolling with her chin against her chest as the drug wore off, her neck regaining more strength each second. She must have passed out because the next thing she knew Flynn was attaching the nodes to her body again, the red patches of angry skin marking where they’d been for the last two days.

“Are we going to be friends today, Sydney? I’d really like that, love.”

“Fuck you,” she growled, her voice almost unrecognizable to herself. The Brit sighed and rose, flitting about setting out items on the table as she stared at his clean three-piece suit. 

She hated it. 

She hated him.

She hated this room.

She wanted to go home.

She wanted to see her father.

She wanted to see Vaughn.

She wanted to give up.

She wouldn’t.

"Have it your way," he growled, Sydney noting that something had changed from the previous day that had made him agitated and on edge.

The red light turned on at the top of the camera the moment he was done fiddling with his supplies, and he plastered a fake grin across his face looking into the lens.

“She is a lot less feisty this morning, that’s for sure. Is it possible we’ve broken the wild pony, lads?”

“You wish,” she growled from her spot to his left.

 _'I’m not giving up until he gives up.’_ A new wave of determination reclaimed a spot in her heart at the illumination of the red light. When it was on, she knew she wasn’t alone. Sure, it was a sick reminder that everyone she knew and loved was watching her be maimed, but she wasn’t alone. She didn’t realize until the last few moments of yesterday's session how much that red light meant to her.

That light was love.

That light was home.

That light was her daddy.

That light was Vaughn.

That light was hope.

She’d cherish that dumb light as long as she could. As long as it stayed on, she'd keep going. Flynn would have to give up first.

“Sydney, can we get some stuff out of the way today or will I have to resort to my more barbaric nature?” His voice was gentle but his eyes were warning icy flashes. 

“Go ahead,” she said slowly and quietly. Her voice was tired and laced with pain.

“I know yesterday was rough, love, and I really hate what I had to do, but if you cooperate from here on out I’m sure this will go more easy.”

"It's...'easier'. More easy is...an improper sentence.”

She saw his shoulders tense under the suit. “Tell me about your father. He’s CIA too, isn’t he?”

Silence. _‘Oh_ **_hell_ ** _no. You had better luck trying to get Russian officials out of me. I'll never give up another agent, let alone someone I love.’_

“Isn’t that sweet? Father and daughter working together, bringing down the bad guys. Do you think he’s watching right now?” Flynn made a move to look into the camera. “Mister Bristow, don’t you want to save your daughter? Why don’t you call me - talk with us? You can save her, you know. I’ve been told they will happily trade if you’ll take her place.”

A phone number flashed across the screen, Kendall immediately pointing a finger at Jack who was seated at the other end of the table. “Don’t you _dare_ think about it. You know he’s lying and we’re not giving you both up to this asshole.”

Jack’s lizard brain screamed at him to grab his phone and save his daughter’s life, but the Bristow part of his brain wouldn’t let him be fooled. He didn’t need Kendall’s order for him to not do it, but he reached into his pocket to remove the device and handed it to Vaughn anyway.

“Trap or not, remove the temptation,” he begged, Michael nodding and tucking the cell into his jacket pocket, the weight of it heavier than just a phone.

Back in the room, Flynn looked to the phone on the desk waiting expectantly for a forwarded call that never came. 

“Well, Sydney, it looks like daddy dearest doesn’t much care if you live or die.” Trying to push her buttons, he wasn’t prepared for the soft smile she delivered into the camera as she ignored her torturer. 

“It’s okay,” she whispered, a single tear trekking down her cheek.

Jack felt tightening at the back of his throat as tears filled when he made eye contact with his daughter. She didn't know he was watching, though with her admission, it was something she had clearly assumed.

Flynn sighed. “What’s it gonna take, love? What’s it gonna take for you to give me some answers?”

“You haven’t asked any questions worth answering,” she said in a monotone voice. The less worked up she got, the more frustrated Flynn could end up and she wanted to keep it that way. That was when he would make a mistake.

“You really want to go down this path?” This was his first warning of any sessions, his hands akimbo regarding the thorn in his side. For the first time in dozens of torture sessions he regretted promising Alain that it would be a full seven days as he desperately tried to push down the desire to shoot her in the head and get out of this stinking, drab, cold room.

“Look, I’m sure it makes you feel...powerful to beat a woman tied to a chair, but I honestly don’t care what you want because I’m not gonna give it to you.” She paused, taking a staggered breath against the painful stitch in her sore ribs. Meeting his eyes, she continued. “Ask your stupid questions, poke me with your stupid knife, zap me with your stupid machine...do whatever it is you have planned. I’m tired of sitting here and listening to your droning... **stupid**...voice.”

“You think you’d be more inclined to share if you weren’t in that _stupid_ chair?”

Sydney sent him a small grin, “do you remember what happened the last time you left me untied? The nose whistle?”

“And yet when you were fresh, _I_ took you down.”

"After I'd already almost killed two of your assistants and had been tied unmoving to a chair for over 24 hours."

"You hadn't taken a lick of damage, and yet one punch and you were flat on your back."

As much as she could, pushing past the pain, she shrugged. “Wanna go a second round?” 

_'Uhh...you can’t fight right now.’_ That damned Bristow side of her brain was back.

_'Duh. But...it’ll be really satisfying if I can land one damn punch. Maybe re-break his nose? Wouldn’t that be satisfying?’_

_'Well, it would get us out of the chair,’_ she mused, deciding to push.

Flynn laughed a genuine and deep belly laugh. “You cocky little shit! I really do love you, Sydney.”

“I didn't think so,” she goaded, his body language and facial features screaming surprise though she caught another emotion in his eyes: excitement. 

He knew that she wouldn’t be able to do much under her own power. 

He knew her strength would be next to nil having had no food or water for going on three and a half days.

He knew that the spots where he'd sunk the tiny blade were pure muscle and that each move would cause wave after wave of blinding pain to ripple through her whole body. 

He knew he could win, probably quite easily, especially with his MMA training. He knew she was best with a mix of krav maga and kickboxing, and considering the amount of damage she’d taken, it would be difficult for her to pull any of it off without a fair amount of notice to her intentions.

He knew her reactions would be dulled by both pain and blood loss.

What he didn’t know was her amazing ability to compartmentalize that pain.

**…**

“Can she fight right now?” A random person in the room asked the question on everyone’s mind, the medical personnel each shaking their heads. 

They all watched as Flynn called in his assistants and ordered them to bundle up the camera and follow him into an adjacent room. He made a show of uncoupling her arms and legs from the metal chair, pausing for a moment and expecting her to swing as she had the last time she was loose. The limbs stayed limp, however, and he wrapped an arm around her waist all but dragging her groaning in pain from the room as the lackeys desperately tried to follow.

“Don’t count her out. This girl fought through a dozen guards and broke out of a holding cell with a bullet in her shoulder,” Kendall countered looking over at her father. “Jack, Project Christmas had a pain element that wasn’t approved for testing. But...I have to ask: did you put Sydney through the pain trials?”

The man nodded, holding his hands up in defense as several around the table balked. 

“Jesus, Jack, she was seven-years-old,” Kendall muttered.

“I modified it using a small electric ball that delivered a mild, random shock. She chose to play with it and it gave a slight zap akin to licking the end of a 9-volt battery. It could ramp up to a strong jolt, which she withstood, even enjoyed. She said she liked that it made her jump.” 

The father sighed and focused his eyes on the table. "She's been an adrenaline junkie her whole life and giggled during the tests, even when I warned her it could hurt. She was able to focus on drawing, math, writing, all while being shocked, and never once did she walk away from a test until it was over." He paused as a frown clouded his features. "Despite what some of you may think, I love my daughter and didn’t torture her when she was a child. I would take her place right now if it were possible."

One of the medical staff was still taking notes, “did she pass the tests?”

“Sydney’s ability to compartmentalize pain astounded me when she was young. I doubt it’s something she’s lost over the years.” The father was suddenly self-conscious, Michael speaking up as he set a hand to Jack’s shoulder in support.

“Before Sydney came to us she’d been tortured in Taipei while trying to get an in back to SD-6. They pulled four molars, one by one with a pair of extractors, and she didn’t even go see a dentist before coming into the office for a fifteen-hour debrief. She’s tough.”

Will’s hand went to his jaw, his tongue feeling the single spot in the back of the left side of his mouth where that same man had ripped out one of his _own_ teeth in similar fashion. One tooth and he’d blabbed like a baby - though it didn’t help that he had no good information to blab. The second tooth they pulled was just to show him that they could. 

Sydney had told him that the same had happened to her, but _four teeth_? And she’d given them nothing? She’d left that part out.

**…**

She was dropped unceremoniously on the floor of a larger cement room. Her body screamed, though all that left her tight lips was a strained whimper. It was a fight just to roll onto her back, but as Flynn had been dragging her down the hallway she’d been flexing and tensing every muscle group she could control, and the pain was beginning to dull. If she kept working the sores spots, they wouldn't make her flinch if she had to move quickly.

Of course, there was no way she was going to admit or show that fact, so she stayed on her back on the floor panting with an occasional groan as her left arm wrapped around her sore, broken ribs. Dull didn’t mean that it wasn’t painful, and her whole body was an ache that seemed to seep into her soul. 

_'Just one punch...one satisfying punch.’_ That became her mantra.

Turning her head she saw the nervous assistant set the camera back onto the tripod and scamper from the room, the red light a soothing beacon as it came to life.

“Well, you get what you ask for. Isn’t that what you told me a couple days ago, love? To be careful what I ask for?” He laughed as he slowly unbuttoned the suit jacket and slid it off of his shoulders, his hands straightening and running the wrinkles out of the fabric before he laid it gently on the floor in the corner of the room. 

"Be…careful what you...wish for, I think is…what I said."

“I have to think that our number of viewers just soared, Sydney. They love this shit,” he said as he began robotically rolling up the sleeves of the white dress shirt, keeping the silk vest on over his chest. “You may want to stretch, darling, it’s been a couple of days since you were up and about.”

“Oh...don’t you worry about me,” she groaned from her spot on the floor. “I’ve got you...right where I want you.”

He gave a delighted chuckle not realizing that she was merely feeding his ego, and more importantly, not realizing that it was working. He was at his height of cocky as he finished rolling the sleeves and slid his hands into his pockets content to watch her struggle.

“I’ll give you a free shot if you can even get off the ground, love.”

She groaned as she rolled to her stomach, the pressure of the floor against the four staple-pinched wounds making her gasp and squeeze her eyes closed. Managing to push up onto all fours, her arms shaking, she made a show of panting through the pain as the cuts on the limbs protested the movement. The breathing was half legitimate, but he didn't need to know that.

“I don’t need a free shot, and...you don’t want me to take one,” she growled, pushing back with her hands until she managed to settle her backside onto her calves, finally vertical.

“There you go, love. Almost upright. I’m sure any second now you’ll put fear into my soul.” He wasn’t able to keep the excitement out of his voice, Sydney looking at him and then the lens with an exasperated growl.

“God I’m sick of your voice. Maybe I _will_ take that free shot if it’ll shut you up.”

“Hmm, funny.”

She struggled to her feet, one hand flat against the wall to her right as she regained her balance. As sure of herself as she was, it _had_ been almost three full days since she’d stood on her own two legs, and they ached and shook for a moment at the sudden movement after the lack of activity. Add to that the almost crippling pain of the stabs he’d pierced into her thighs and calves, it all hit her a bit harder than she thought it would. Setting her palms to her knees she took a few ragged breaths before making it upright.

“Whenever you’re ready,” he said with a bright, wide smile, his stance relaxed and casual with hands still in his pockets.

Sydney held up her pointer finger asking him to wait, the pain written deep in her features as she forced her arms up to pull the hair tie from the loose ponytail, redoing it very slowly before dropping her limbs with a wince. The punctures in the muscle above and between her shoulder and neck pinched sending a jolt of pain straight to her brain.

 _'Make it short, because you only have enough energy for one shot, maybe two. Last time they had to pull him off of_ **_you_ ** _; this time make them pull_ **_you_ ** _off of_ **_him_ ** _.’_

Flynn came closer, his hands still tucked in his pockets. “You sure you don’t want that free shot? It may be the only one you get,” he goaded, taking another few steps until he was only two to three feet away from the tough young woman who seemed barely able to stand. 

“Come on, broken little angel, I realize it’s not a fair fight, but that's why I’m giving you this tiny advantage. One shot if you can even muster the-”

Muscles springing into action she felt the adrenaline burst and slammed her knee into his groin before her right hand, already in a fist, shot out and nailed the side of the surprised and stupid look on his face. He hit the ground with a clothes-covered thud, struggling to pull his hands out of the constraining fabric of the pockets. Though everything throbbed and stung, her instincts took over and she fell to her knees straddling his stomach as both hands threw as many punches as hard and as fast as she could, an angry scream tearing from her throat.

His hands finally came loose and moved to try and catch her flurry of surprisingly strong punches as his brain slowly caught on to the fact that she was going to keep hitting him if he didn’t do something.

As predicted, the door to the room flew open and the two assistants ran forward to pull her off of Flynn and allow him to roll on his side away from the agent that had just pummeled him into the ground.

The adrenaline began to wane after the short stint in her bloodstream. One assistant moved to the boss’s side as he lay curled in a bleeding ball with one hand holding the right side of his face and the other wedged between his legs cupping his kneed manhood. The second assistant pushed her back, Sydney hitting the far wall and sliding down as her legs gave out forcing her to sit on the cold cement floor.

“I hope,” gasp, “it was as...good for you as...it was for me,” she growled, feeling a biting sting in both arms. Looking down she saw that three of the staples had come loose and were somewhere on the floor of the room, the wounds bleeding openly down her trembling and taut muscles as one in her left forearm hung half out. Reaching up with a fatigued shaking hand she pulled it loose and tossed it at the torturer who was rolling onto his back with a groan.

“Get out!” he bellowed, the two assistants scrambling toward the door but not exiting as they watched him with wide eyes.

Blood leaked from the open wounds she’d punched into both of his cheekbones, his left eyebrow, and the right side top and bottom lip. He felt a tightness in his jaw as he opened and closed it, and a growl rose up from his chest when turning his head to look over at her, blood pulsing from the reopened wound at the bridge of his nose and landing on the floor under his cheek. 

The icy malice in his eyes as he turned them on her made her stomach tense, and she asked herself if she regretted using nearly the last drop of energy she had inflicting those wounds and poking the bear that would undoubtedly make the next couple of days even more brutal, if she survived that long. Was it worth it?

 _'Abso-fucking-lutely.’_

“Well done, Bristow." He snarled and gagged a bit, spitting blood to the cement before rolling onto his back.

“Ooh, so formal,” she grumbled, the two of them on the floor bleeding and breathing as if they’d just gone ten rounds. “What happened to ‘love’, and...and ‘darling’? I...I thought we were closer than that.”

He grunted and sat up, his angry glare turning on the staff lingering by the door. “I said get out,” he ordered.

“Flynn...we can’t kill her. Not yet.”

“Are you speaking to me as if you’re in charge?”

Sydney chuckled, “I love being...the most valuable commodity...in the room.” The left arm was least sore, so she was pressing it against the right side of her ribs applying as much pressure she could to alleviate the ache, though it wasn't really working.

Flynn pushed until he stood, his palms to his knees as he sucked a few breaths through clenched teeth. Blood dripped and splattered to the cement between his feet and onto his fancy shoes, and he dragged his left hand up his thigh to cup his groin with a wince. Pushing the pain down he stood tall, the blood redirecting to stain the silk vest. His eyes followed the drops putting an annoyed glare on his face.

“I just got this, Sydney, you’ve ruined it.”

“Aww,” she said, though she showed no actual remorse. She tipped to her left side and pushed herself to stand up, the wall holding most of her weight. “We...we still doing this?”

Flynn balked at the audacity of the woman. He wanted to respect her, but he was just too angry at the moment. Deciding he’d respect her tomorrow, he undid the buttons of the vest and pulled it off, tossing it across the room. His rigid and forceful actions belied his anger, Sydney knowing that the next few minutes would probably not be enjoyable if he played his cards right. But, if she could push him a bit more, she knew he was teetering on the brink of breaking and giving in to uncontrollable rage. That's when he would make another mistake that she could capitalize on, at least that's the way she hoped it would work. Because if that _wasn't_ the case, she may not wake up the next day.

He took slow, menacing steps toward her, his fists balled up and ready to strike, Sydney getting mostly stable on her feet trying to prepare for his attack. She kept one hand palm flat against the cool stone wall at her back. 

“Do...do you want me to...give you a free shot?” Her grin was the last straw, and he snapped, swinging his right fist in a wild arc. It was just the mistake she’d been waiting for.

Dropping down a bit, her side and thighs tightening with a stabbing ache, the satisfying crunch of his hand shattering on contact with the cement wall gave her a confidence boost as she put all she had left into her own fist, slamming upward into his jaw. She watched his eyes roll back before he hit the ground: unconscious. Her momentum sent her down as her legs gave out, a groan squeezing from her throat as she landed hard gasping for breath. She dimly felt a twinge in her left knee, but it was hard to discern from every other aching scream in her body.

Other than her harsh gasps, the room was silent. She stayed quiet while looking over at the assistants as they scampered forward and dragged Flynn across the room toward the door.

“We’ll be back, Bristow,” one hollered trying to sound tough.

She used the last of her energy to laugh harshly from the floor as they slammed the door behind them during their retreat.

**…**


	15. Here on Day Six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [](https://www.flickr.com/photos/190971129@N06/50577786093/in/dateposted/)   
> 

A/N: The beginning of this chapter has sexual assault themes. If you find this subject difficult to read, please skip down to the second part after the break which looks like this:

**_***BREAK***_ **

A throbbing ache in her left leg pulled her from the deep black oblivion of sleep. She didn’t know where she was for a moment until taking in the unfortunately familiar smells of the dank cell, a mere ghost of light not enough to illuminate anything. Trying to sit up she found that her body ached beyond allowing it, and a sharp stabbing pinch from that damn left leg had her flop back down to the metal cot.

“Hopefully that was some good sleep because it’s all you’re gonna get for a while,” a garbled voice echoed in the blackness, the nasally and grouchy cockney accent making her jump before she rolled her eyes with an exasperated sigh.

Licking her lips and pushing to speak past the sore dryness of her throat, “why do you have to be the first and last thing I see each day?”

“You know,” he started, and with the scant light coming through the crack underneath the door she could make out the edge of his outline sitting in a chair to the left of her bed. “I always considered myself too good for basic, syndicated television torture. I take pride in my work unlike those other wannabe electricians or power-hungry psychos.”

His words were mumbled and came from behind closed teeth, Sydney smiling in the darkness. “I broke your jaw, didn’t I?”

His sigh was her answer, but she took it straight to heart. “Do you know what percentage of women held captive are raped?”

A ball of heavy dread sobered her immediately, making her stomach sink. That subject had been one she’d been preparing for each night in the dark solitary confines of the cell, and each night that nothing happened and she was left alone ate at her bit by bit.

“But not me,” he continued slowly. “Those and other means are for bottom-feeding mob or...or gang scum. What _I_ do is different. I’m an extractor of information; of...intelligence.”

She heard him move and leaned up to look, but holding her head up created an awful ache as it pulled the stab wounds in the trapezius muscles on both sides of her neck. The moment his fingertips grazed her shin she jumped, another bout of fire radiating from her stomach as her abdomen tensed around the stapled holes. While she knew the damn machine wasn’t connected, her brain made her think it was and stiffened everything despite the fact that no actual pain happened.

"Nothing else I’ve tried has worked, Sydney. Therein lies my frustration.” His fingers traced swirling lines atop her fabric-covered lower leg before moving up toward the knee. “While I’ve never seen the appeal in that barbaric approach, I’m beginning to come around to the idea as everything else fails.”

She breathed in shallow pants trying to hide the creeping fear and gave up on holding her head at an angle since she couldn't see him in the dark anyway. That damn calm voice, mealy-mouthed behind his broken jaw, set her on edge. The touching stopped for a moment, her ears hyper-focusing, and she heard a clatter of something plastic hit the floor and skitter away. Flynn expelled a sigh of relief, but she had no clue what it stemmed from. 

A sharp and sudden stab twisted her knee as he pushed her left leg off the bed with a quick shove, the subsequent zipping sound accompanying a tight, biting ring of plastic wrapping around her ankle and binding it to the leg of the bed. Adrenaline poured into her bloodstream and she fought back with her free leg, but he caught it easily as the muscles were too weak and aching to deliver an accurate or damaging kick. It was wrangled and fastened in the same fashion off the other side of the metal cot. As quick as he had moved before, he was gone, the darkness of the room his advantage, but she could still hear his harsh breathing.

A finger traced the upper part of her shin and painfully dragged across an unnatural swell in her kneecap, both realizing for the first time the new injury. “That’s dislocated, darling. It must be quite painful,” he said softly though continued to put light circles of pressure over the inflamed joint.

The mistake she made was swatting at his hand. Sure she made contact, felt the padded fabric, and heard him hiss in pain as she hit his broken fingers, but his good hand wrapped tightly and painfully around her already sore wrist. Twisting her arm she uttered a panicked and pained whimper, he pushed it down past the metal edge of the cot. Jamming his knee against her forearm to pin it, one of the staples pushing deeper into her damaged muscle, she growled in the back of her through from the strain as more zipping plastic bound it to the cot’s front right leg.

Every expletive she could think of spilled from her lips as fear turned into rage, all multiplied by the throbbing agony of her already abused body. She took a swing the moment his hand touched her again. She wasn’t completely sure of where he was but knew that his weak spot was his jaw and that even a baby tap against it would send him to the floor.

She missed, the sudden waft of air passing his face the only indication that she'd attempted to hit him. His response was to laugh and step back, though the darkness kept him from admiring his progress.

“That was the punch _not_ to miss, darling,” he mocked.

Another bout of breathy, angry name-calling bounced off of the cement walls.

He tutted through his teeth, “tisk, tisk, Sydney, what language. Though, as an English major, your inventiveness is impressive.”

Several agonizingly slow moments passed, Sydney's harsh breathing masking her ability to hear him move. A flick against her distended knee made her groan behind clenched teeth, her free hand cupping the injury and falling victim to his grip once more. She summoned what strength she could from the remaining adrenaline as it began to wane and tried to free her arm with a tug, but he turned it against her. 

When she pulled back trying to yank her wrist free, he followed and ended up above her legs hovering over her hips in a straddle. Pushing downward and feeling the resistance in her lithe frame, he reached his bandaged hand up and dug his thumb into the stapled wound under her collarbone, sticky liquid leaking from around the metal bit. The pain made her whimper as her arm was painfully angled down and to the side, though with his other hand occupied he wasn't able to pull the zip tie from his lips to cinch the last remaining limb to the cot.

Spitting it down to her chest he pinched the plastic between his pointer and ring finger and slid it down. Her body went full into fight mode, her hips bucking up but not gaining much purchase with her legs immobilized and his thighs squeezed over hers forcing her injured knee to turn in on itself.

While she put him off a few extra moments, the tie zipped with a forceful jerk against the already rubbed raw skin of her wrist. Knowing she wasn't able to move any of her extremities, he settled on his backside against her thighs making sure to angle his weight and cause as much discomfort in the dislocated knee as possible as they both gasped into the darkness.

Minutes went by as his breathing calmed down, and he held his broken right hand against his chest happy that she couldn't see his moment of weakness or the pain on his face from clenching and holding the tie between his teeth with his fractured jaw.

He laughed through an exhale feeling her tremble from exertion between his legs. "I'm starting to get why this form of control is used, Sydney. I poked you full of 22 holes and yet this feels so much more powerful."

Flynn leaned forward, his unbroken left hand grasping her chin in his palm and digging his fingers into cheeks as he forced her head back and to the side. His breath was hot on her skin as he buried his face into her neck and inhaled deeply.

"How is it that after three days of everything you’ve been through I can still smell your perfume?" He sucked a wet kiss to the column of her throat knowing it would likely leave a mark, though perhaps not seen through the finger-shaped bruises already adorning her neck. She sucked in a frightened and shuddering inhale making the man above her groan.

He pulled her face back down and she knew that if there was more light she'd see the icy fire in his eyes. The fingers of his wounded hand skimmed over her breast and down her stomach to the waistband of her trousers.

"Do you have a boyfriend, Sydney?" His pointer finger slid inside and around to the front to undo the button.

Tears flowed down her temples and into her hair, her chin quivering against the granite-like grip of his rough palm.

She couldn’t answer through the tightness in her throat but gave a minute and negative shake of her head.

Flynn laughed as his fingers played with the cool metal of the zipper. "Your only tell is when you're trying to lie to me about something personal." Tightening his grip on her face, his finger pushing the needle-like ends of the staple deeper into her cheek.

"What will you give me to stop, Sydney?" His ask was whispered against the pounding pulse point between her collarbones, his tongue dipping out to taste the salty skin.

"This...won’t make me talk," she growled trying and failing to sound unfazed.

His laugh was a rush of hot air. "That little fear-filled tremor in your voice is delicious."

He dragged his finger over her cloth-covered center as a pounding knock at the metal door startled them both, Flynn growling deep in his throat as he sat up.

"What?"

"You've a phone call, sir." 

The Brit nodded though none could see. Pressing his lower half against hers, his hands gripped her hips as he placed his mouth against her ear, his lips brushing the lobe as he spoke.

"Don't _ever_ forget who is in charge." Picking up his head he brushed her cracked lips with a soft kiss feeling the rushing pants of air as her body panicked beneath him, and she snapped her head to the side in an attempt to get away from him. "Because I'm sure your boyfriend and father and friends would **love** to see this instead." He punctuated his statement by grinding the bulge in his trousers against her core.

With painful pressure against her knee, he sat back up, both hands still at her waist where he slipped the button back through the hole securing the pants in their original state. Climbing off with a grunt the door slowly opened revealing a thin beam of light that made her wince.

"Sir?"

"Get her back in the chair," Flynn ordered.

"The camera is still in the other room if-"

"No camera. Just us."

Despite everything that had just happened, the knowledge that she would actually be alone with him made her panic all over again. 

For the first time in three days, she was truly scared of him.

**...**

**_***BREAK***_ **

**...**

  
  


“Any update?” Vaughn poked his head into Marshall’s field of view, the techie jumping mid-sip into his drink of freshly poured coffee, the liquid sloshing and staining his clean shirt. “I’m sorry, Marshall,” he apologized.

“Vaughn, I said I’d let you know, and I will. The website hasn’t been updated; it’s still sitting at zero on the time with no next stream; I’m sorry.”

Michael tried to hide the disappointment from his face, but wasn’t doing a good job. “Any luck with that signal strength test?”

“I wanna say yes because you, you know, probably need a...like a boost right now, but no...not yet. But I’m still working on it.”

“It’s day six, Marshall. They may not have updated their clock, but a week is a week.”

Weiss rescued the computer whiz, pulling Vaughn by the shoulders out of the Rotunda. “Weiss, c’mon, man, I got a lot to-”

“You got nothing to do but worry. C’mon. We’re going home to get clean clothes and have a shower.”

“No,” Vaughn growled and fought, though Eric used his size against him and with a single instance of wrist control, the appendage tightly pinched behind his back, Michael was forced into the parking garage and pushed into the passenger seat of a car. He stopped fighting when each time he went for the handle Weiss pushed the lock button, effectively keeping the furious green-eyed man inside.

The drive to the apartment was so far silent, Eric taking a red light moment to look over at his friend. “I never realized that you can’t grow facial hair.”

“Yes I can,” Vaughn said defensively, his hand coming up and running fingers over the multi-day scruff spotted over his chin and cheeks.

“Dude...I haven’t shaved either and I’m killing it. Look,” Weiss ordered, Michael finally focusing to see the darker hair stand out on his friend's rounded face. He also saw the prominent worry lines creasing Eric’s mouth, eyes and forehead.

Heaving a sigh he patted him on the shoulder and faced forward. “Thanks, Weiss.”

Sitting on the comfortable couch as the shower ran at the other end of the apartment, Eric let his head loll back feeling sleep pull at him after far too many hours awake, but vibration of the cell on his leg jolted him awake. *SENOR SCARY* flashed as Jack Bristow called.

“News?”

“They updated the website and will be live in an hour. Where are you two?”

“I dragged Vaughn home to shower and get some clothes, he needed it. We’ll be there soon. Do you need anything?”

A curt negative reply and the hanging up of the phone was more than he thought he was going to get, the water shutting off as he walked into the bedroom and started grabbing a few pairs of pants and button-up shirts hanging in the closet and stuffing them into a duffle bag he found in the corner.

Stepping out of the bathroom with a towel around his waist and another rubbing at his wet hair, Vaughn frowned as Eric haphazardly packed for him. “What the hell are you doing?”

“They updated the site, it’s going live in an hour. Grab shit and get ready, we gotta go.”

Forty-five minutes later, they walked into the rotunda, Vaughn tucking the shirt into his waistband as they made their way to the conference room, the main room empty save for Marshall typing bleary-eyed and oblivious at his desk.

Kendall waved them in, the room packed though Jack had saved Vaughn his usual seat between himself and Will. Apparently, everyone was curious enough to brave the view in order to see what state Sydney was in after an almost two-day hiatus. The overcrowded room was split between those that could handle more than a slap to the cheek seated for the long haul, and those that were sure to bolt at the first instance of violence standing so they could easily exit the room.

The nervous energy felt like that first day, Michael bouncing his knee and twisting his pen around between his knuckles. By the time the feed flashed to life everyone was almost too afraid to look.

Sydney wasn’t in the frame yet, though the battered and stitched-together face of Flynn was front and center. It was likely that his jaw was broken, the left side swollen and purple, and he moved it as little as possible once he started talking.

“You...remember back to that - that second day? Where I said my...first assistants had made mistakes and were punished?” Flynn chuckled, though a pained grimace cut it short. “Boy is my face red. But I know you were all rooting for me, and for those that were wondering: I’m fine, but I do apologize for the extended gap. I’m sure that you were all very worried about me.”

He settled his hip onto the wooden desk getting comfortable. “While I wasn’t in any condition to stream, I want everyone at the CIA to know that I took very good care of your agent in the interim.” He made a show of checking his watch. “We’ve spent the last couple of days getting a _lot_ of quality time together, haven’t we, love? When I took some naps, my assistants were nice enough to take my place and keep our little firecracker awake with a lovely drug cocktail. I don’t know what her record is, but she’s at 33 hours so far.”

Relief settled into Vaughn’s soul where worry had been gnawing: she was still alive.

The mumbled voice of the Brit came from off-screen as he moved out of frame, “normally, I’m not one to stoop to such petty lows, just so you know. I’m the farthest person from being goaded into a fight. But she...she got to me.”

Flynn turned the camera to face his subject, Sydney finally coming into view. She looked almost the same as when last they’d seen her, though the staples over the wounds in her arms had been replaced, the angry red slits inflamed, probably with mild infection. She’d actually been cleaned up a bit, dried blood mostly wiped away leaving the bruises more prominent against her skin. It was everything else that was different. 

There was a stark definition to her collarbones and Michael could see that her cheeks bore deeper shadows against her tight skin. Her breathing was shallow and skin pale, and her eyes were bloodshot with deep circles that were dark despite the bruises.

It was obvious that she was exhausted and in an intense amount of pain, her muscles twitching randomly as her body ached. Missing were the electric nodes that had previously been attached daily to her skin.

The man moved in a slow monotonous circle around her, but she ignored his trek as her eyes slowly closed. His fingers ran softly over her shoulder and she winced pulling away, her eyes flying back open.

“Something happened. He...he did something during the hiatus. That reaction, without the nodes...” one of the psychologists said quietly, the other specialist beside her agreeing.

One of the medical staff countered, “those pads charged her skin. It’s very possible that her brain is now wired to expect the electric shock any time she’s touched. Add to the fact that she looks sleep-deprived, that reaction is normal.”

Flynn spoke up, unknowingly cutting off the conversation. “Ah ah, darling. Don’t you want to see how long you can stay awake? No sleeping yet.”

He moved back to the desk, slid a drawer open, and pulled out a syringe.

“You know what’s really good, Sydney? Morphine.” He stuck the needle into his thigh giving himself a dose, the relaxation and calm spreading across his features. “If you tell me one little thing about that EMP weapon or the map, I’ll give you a hit of this morphine.” He set a second syringe on the edge of the table within view, surprised when her eyes didn’t even look in its direction. He continued as she stayed silent.

“You must be in a lot of pain, love,” he mumbled. “You’ve been sitting in that chair for a day and a half, and I can’t imagine how everything must just ache.” 

"I’m fine," she said, her voice almost unrecognizable, those that knew her best flinching at the raw tired sound that scratched from her dry throat. 

“Have the last two days taught you nothing? Should I turn the camera back off? You seemed more...flexible and talkative yesterday, love.” The anger that tensed her features as her eyes dropped to look at the floor below the camera made the psychologists share a worried glance.

“That behavior is psychological. He _did_ something or...or said something.”

In the absence of any stream over the last two days, the JTF was only marginally closer to locating the source of the signal. While Marshall was still trying to narrow it down, they had some promising leads the analysts were working through. Still, the deadline was looming, and the fact that he’d said a week and had been so far sticking to his timetable meant they had today to find anything viable. While everyone thought it, no one said it: it didn’t look good.

In the meantime, she had to keep going, unaware of the fact that her team was trying their hardest to get to her, but every time she didn’t fall for his goads was a reminder that she hadn’t given up, and it gave those listening a renewed sense of purpose. If she could still fight, so could they.

Rolling the chair over on his last pass around the room, the Brit settled down with a groan and lifted a thick folder filled with papers using his good hand. Crossing one leg over the other, the shining shoes cleaned up and glinting even in the low light, he set the folder to his knee and opened it.

“What say you give me some information today?”

Hours later, Flynn was still seated casually in the chair a few feet from her firing questions left and right, Sydney mostly answered honestly, though when it came to details about agents or those she swore to protect, she clammed up appropriately despite the sleep deprivation.

"So you faked Hassan’s death?"

Sydney gave a slow nod, her eyes unfocused. Her stomach ached from lack of food and water, though it got lost in the cacophony of pain signals the rest of her body was sending out every second. The spots of skin beneath the sticky pads itched and caused her to twitch which in turn caused pain to flare up from the stapled wounds and overexerted muscles.

“You know, we’ve been at this for over nine hours today, and you’ve given me a hell of a lot of intel. I’m glad that I was so persuasive earlier.” 

Flynn rose and stretched, a wince making him rub at the sore muscles of his neck. Moving across the room after peeking at his watch, he opened the drawer of the desk and removed another small syringe of morphine. Administering it into his bloodstream he relaxed once more and moved to sit back in the chair. She stayed silent through her observation.

“But...it’s not the information I’ve really needed. You’re still not going to give me anything useful to get even a few minutes of reprieve from the pain?” He lifted and wiggled the unused syringe he’d set out as bait.

Sydney took in his bruised face with stitches prominent on both cheekbones and right eyebrow, her eyes a brown flash of annoyance surrounded by pain. “The first step is admitting when you have a problem,” she said softly.

“You’re an amazing bullshit artist,” Flynn growled, Sydney finding a chink in his bravado.

“I didn’t...mean to upset you. It’s okay that you’re the - the second toughest person in the room.”

His eyes flashed, and she could see tension stiffen his jaw followed by a grimace of pain from the pinch in the swollen left side. 

_'He couldn’t be goaded into losing it again this early, could he?’_

“Why don’t you just tell me why you’re being so cooperative today? We’ll save our aggression for later.”

She sat quietly for a moment thinking over if she wanted to give up her strategy as it had been working all day and had saved her a lot of energy. “You’re streaming everything I say to...give or take...100,000 people,” she swallowed taking a breath, “the CIA is watching...along with probably a - a half-dozen other agencies across the globe.”

Her tongue licked at her dry lips, the metallic taste of the cut on the lower left side her focus for a second before running over the still slowly bleeding puncture he’d stabbed through her left cheek. She could feel the metal ends of the staple as they’d pierced through from the outside, but the inside hadn’t been stitched and was still raw to the touch as the familiar taste of blood hit her tongue when she worried the spot.

“Whatever I tell you...becomes worthless five minutes after it leaves my mouth. So...keep talking until you get tired and...send me back to my room, or...skip to the end and kill me. I'm not gonna give you what you really want...no matter your threats or - or promises.” Fatigue pulled her head low as she squeezed her eyes closed.

Flynn chuckled. “And here I thought we were having such a pleasant chat.” Setting the file back on the desk he leaned forward to prop his elbows on his knees, the bulky wrap around his broken right hand pulling his attention for a moment. “We could just go back to the knife if you’d like,” he offered. “Pick up where we left off a few days ago, though I don’t think you’ve much blood left to bleed, darling.”

She looked up and made eye contact at his suggestion, “I don’t care... _what_ you do with your day.”

“Aww, tell me you haven’t given up, Sydney, that would be so very disappointing.” She followed him as he moved to the table and lifted a pair of needle-nose pliers, testing them a few times as the muscles flexed in his lower arm.

He circled around behind her, and though she knew no one watching could see what he was doing, the second the pliers wedged underneath her left thumbnail pinching it tightly, she squeezed her eyes closed and tensed her whole body.

“Me personally, I recommend breaking the fingers before removing the fingernails. That way, the pain is two-fold. But,” he paused, his hand yanking downward in a jerk.

A strangled scream hurt the back of her dry throat. Flynn rose with a bounce in his step holding something in his palm. “Remember what you told me yesterday off-camera? You said that I could take the nothing you had left because you weren’t going to break. Well...you have nine nails left, love. Shall I take them all? One by one?” He punctuated his words by tossing the piece he'd torn off to the floor at her feet.

“Tech - technically, you’re...wrong,” she panted, her eyes still closed as the pain of her thumb throbbed in time with her heartbeat. “I have 19 nails left.”

His jaw clenched with another wince against the pain belying his frustration, his voice still trying to sound calm. “There are over 200 bones in the human body, Bristow. Shall we explore them all and see which are hardest to break?”

She grinned at his threat and knew that she’d been the one to do the breaking - figuratively of course. “Again with...formalities. I thought we were...just having a pleasant chat, _darling_.” Swallowing nothing and wishing it was cool water, “you said the intel came last. That...that all they wanted from me were screams, but they must be...putting the screws into you about that second prototype.”

Sydney thought that perhaps today was the last of her sarcasm he could take as he learned that keeping her from sleeping for almost two full days hadn’t done anything for his cause. This was probably the first moment where she was happy to have been secretly subjected to Project Christmas as a child as it had been saving her life this week.

Keeping his frustration in mind, she kept pushing, “two-hundred and six, by the way.” At his confused and angry frown, “bones in the human body. Well...for those of us with a spine.”

Everything went black as his fist shot out and caught her in the jaw.

“Fuck,” Flynn growled seeing that he’d hit the sweet spot and knocked her unconscious. Stalking to the camera, he killed the feed with a frustrated growl.

**…**

The echoing of low voices bounced off the wide white walls of the hallway, Jack trudging to his room meaning to change his rumpled and sweaty clothes before heading back upstairs. Glancing to his right as he passed the half-open door of the lower recreation room, he found that the noise was coming from a television news program set to low volume. Pausing to listen, he saw two talking heads arguing above a ticker banner, though he couldn’t tell which channel from the angle.

 _"There’s no doubt any longer that she is some government agent that is highly trained to handle torture. A civilian would have folded long ago and sold every secret they had if any. She’s held out far too long for you to keep making the same tired arguments on air,”_ a male voice barked only to be talked over by a woman’s shrill reply. 

_"But a secret agent for whom? The Central Intelligence Agency isn’t claiming Sydney Bristow as an agent. For all we know, we’re hoping for the rescue of a Russian spy sent to steal U.S. secrets and murder loyal patriots. You have no idea who she really is, yet you idolize her.”_

A deep and grumbling scoff along with the tinkering of ice in a glass tumbler pulled Jack’s eyes to the dark-skinned figure seated on the sofa watching the program with glaring eyes.

Back on the television, the so-far silent man on the bottom right of the screen interjected, _“as a former CIA operative, if she’s black ops or special projects, they_ **_can’t_ ** _claim her as an agent. There’s a good chance that it’ll put dozens if not hundreds of other lives in danger to say she works for us - and she knows this. She isn’t begging for rescue or trying to give hints to her location in any of these streams. I agree with Mister Sampson that Sydney Bristow is obviously highly trained, and very likely one of ours. I’ve been through the torture training and, while they obviously can’t prepare you for something of this magnitude, she’s been doing the exact things I was trained to do in the event of a lengthy interrogation.”_

The woman clapped back again, _“don't the Russians have the same type of training programs for their secret agents? I mean, a student of literature that works as a loan officer for a bank sounds like a classic Bond villain cover story."_

“They’re right, you know, to a point,” Jack said quietly, announcing to Dixon that he was present. “If we claim her it would put...a lot of lives at risk.”

Marcus turned a wary gaze on the man in the doorway. “I’ve tried for two days to go upstairs, but I can’t. This,” he pointed at the screen, the news station rolling footage from several days earlier of Sydney’s bruised and bloodied face before the stabbing session, “is bad enough. How can you watch the live stream and not have it crush what’s left of your soul, Jack?”

The father winced at the tone but responded only with a sigh. Moving in and flopping beside the emotionally wounded agent on the couch, he uttered, “I’m sorry." Dixon lifted the remote and muted the television.

“For what?”

“For recruiting you. For...for lying about everything.” 

They lapsed into silence, Marcus sipping at the whiskey as Jack wished he had his own glass to give his suddenly nervous hands something to do other than sit in his lap.

"If anyone deserves someone to risk it all to save them, it's Sydney. Why are we still sitting here?" The frustration, anger, and sadness shared equal time in the man's harsh query, Jack once again wincing at the emotional pike jamming deeper into his heart.

"SD-6 has enough C4 sub-level countermeasures in place to incinerate a city block, not just the people inside the office or - or Credit Dauphine. If we claim her-"

Marcus scoffed, "the one versus many argument? You're gonna throw that at me? Sydney doesn't equal _one_ , Jack."

"I know, and...being honest, that’s just an excuse. We have _no idea_ where she is. I can’t find her," unable to meet the other's eye the father hung his head low. "I'm sorry about everything I set you up for, Marcus."

“It is what it is,” the man slurred into the glass as he finished the amber liquid in one gulp. “I can’t thank her enough. That...that could be me in that chair, and my family could be slaughtered in our home the same way _they_ killed her fiance. She - she didn’t have to arrange to get us out, but she did. _That’s_ who she is, Jack.” Leaning forward he spun the lid back onto the bottle and rose on wobbly legs.

“I’d like to think you’d have done the same, but,” moving across the room Marcus stopped in the doorway, “that’s a bet no one would win. When she dies in that chair tomorrow, the best part of all of us goes with her. What I lost during ten years committed to a lie, and what you lost from longer,” he paused before leaving, “doesn’t mean shit compared to that.” 

**…**

"Okay, wait...wait. I - I'll tell you something about the - the map," Sydney pleaded through sobs as he gripped her thumb, the last unbroken finger on her left hand. They were still lashed together behind the back of the chair, her wrists raw and bleeding from the thick rough cable.

"The thumb is a precious one to lose, isn't it, darling?" Flynn stepped back from her aching digits and moved to the chair. Flopping down with expectant eyes while cradling his sore, broken hand against his chest, he waited for her to continue.

"I...met another a-agent…in-country for the mission." She swallowed, trying but realizing that her compartmentalization was beginning to fail. Her mind was very near giving up and cracking with the number of injuries she’d taken the last few days coupled with no water to rehydrate everything she’d lost.

"So?"

"So I...I didn't go in alone." She paused, a few panting breaths drying out her already parched throat. "When...when I got hit by the guard...I - I couldn't get up the stairs."

Flynn looked impatient. Tomorrow was their last day together, and three hours of today had been wasted after he’d knocked her out. He'd shed the relaxed facade in favor of acting like an abused dog that was going to bite without warning. Gone was the three-piece suit as well as the act, the pants and button-up shirt all that was left and coupled with barely contained rage.

“You know...you may find this...funny,” she gave a small grin as he flashed a warning in his eyes for her to get to the point. “I, uh...never made it up the stairs.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means,” she swallowed, “I never - I never set foot in that office and I - I’ve never seen the map you...you need.”

You could hear a pin drop in both the JTF conference room and the interrogation room, the only sound her harsh breathing trying to mitigate the pain. His eyes went wide as they could, the right side swollen from her barrage a few days ago, and he leaned forward with a menacing glare.

“Are you serious?”

She just nodded with a wry chuckle.

“Let’s take count, shall we? Twenty-two stabs, four broken fingers, 42 hours of no sleep, and seven fingernails across six days, and you finally tell me that you never...even...saw it?”

“I gave you one beat down. Don’t...don’t forget about that,” she reminded, and his response was to ball his fists back up and close his eyes in an attempt to bring the rage down to a manageable level. She grinned, “you really don’t...find it funny?”

“Well...you’re a glutton for punishment, darling.” Flynn shook it off in his mind, his fists loosening. “So. Why don’t you give me the name of the other agent, and they can take your place? _They_ can answer my questions.”

She met his eyes with a scoff.

He frowned. “What’s this other agent worth to you, Sydney? The rest of your fingers? Arms; legs?”

“Everything,” she answered quickly, only slightly surprised that she’d said it out loud. Flynn didn’t miss a beat though and knew she hadn’t meant to make it sound so personal. “I...I’ll never give up another agent.” 

He stalked back behind her, his broken hand wrapping around her wrist as the other grabbed hold of her unbroken thumb. “Thumb’s last chance, darling,” he warned peering over the stapled stab wound just behind her shoulder at the tense line of her bruised jaw.

She shook her head staying quiet: SNAP.

She sobbed at the new pain of her broken thumb, but also as his grip and yank had jarred the other swollen and broken fingers causing them to fire sharp stabs of pain up her arms to the rest of her body.

“Give me a name, Sydney.”

“I can’t,” she cried, warm tears slipping down her cheeks.

“Why?”

“I - I don’t know his...his name.”

Flynn flicked the sore digits making her flinch and groan. “Yes, you do. You’re telling me you’d give up everything for a random, nameless agent you met on some meaningless operation?” 

Silence.

Poke. “What’s the name?” 

Pinch. “Give me the name.”

“ **Fuck you** ,” she growled behind clenched teeth.

The angry man nodded and his hands moved up, one cupping below her stiff and sore elbow as the other wrapped around her wrist just above the binding. “Do you know how hard it is to snap both the radius and ulna in one action? We may have to do this twice, love.”

Looking down to make sure his hands were in place he set his chin on her shoulder and whispered softly into her ear, her reaction to flinch against his proximity. “Who is it, Sydney? I just need a name. Is it someone that works here in your field office? Someone you sit next to in meetings? You know this person very well. Tell me the name.”

She froze. Flynn assumed she was readying herself for pain, but he was wrong. The Brit had given up a detail that would have been easy for anyone else to miss, but Sydney’s sensitive ears picked up on it. It wasn’t just his proximity but because of his word choice. 

He said _‘here’_ . The bastards had brought her back. Who knew how close she was - how close _they_ were?

She made full eye-contact with the lens and blinked a few times in a seemingly erratic pattern. Flynn began to pull upward and Sydney felt the tension grow in her lower left arm.

“Wait...stop...I - I’ll tell,” she gasped, “I’ll tell you what I know,” panting, “but...it won’t help you.”

“Tell me anyway,” he asked in a suddenly sweet voice before pressing a kiss to the side of her neck, grinned as she flinched before he put more pressure on her forearm.

“Michael. His...his name is Michael. B-but that’s all I know.”

**…**


	16. We Wait

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [](https://www.flickr.com/photos/190971129@N06/50580716678/in/dateposted/)

Every eye in the room turned on the agent sitting across the conference table. Previously, Vaughn’s head had been in his hands as he felt the guilt of Sydney taking broken bones on his behalf press his stomach into his guts, but the moment his name left her lips his head shot up and he locked eyes with his agent. She didn’t know he was watching, but her pain-filled brown stare looked straight into the camera because she assumed he was there.

“Why is she giving you up?” Kendal growled, Vaughn shaking his head.

“She wouldn’t...she isn't. She doesn’t, uh, only my mom calls me Michael. We...we missed something - maybe...maybe something he said. Rewind it,” he ordered.

“We can’t here, it’s live. You’ll have to get to a different-” Paul, the analyst, explained, Vaughn already out of the chair and to the door before he finished his sentence. 

The wind rushed by his ears as he ran down the hallway into the control room, Marshall sleeping with his forehead flat on the desk as a program ran on the monitor. Vaughn shook him awake, the techie jumping in panic until he saw who had grabbed him.

“I need you to rewind the video, we...we missed something.”

“Uh...okay,” Marshall wiped the sleep from his eyes, bleary and bloodshot, and typed quickly. The video began playing, Michael grabbing the mouse and fast-forwarding. “Start here.” 

Marshall put the pair of headphones into Michael’s hands and he slipped them on, closing his eyes to try and hear past her pain-filled groans and harsh breaths.

**“Who** _[garble]_ **, Sydney?** _[too low to hear]_ **a name. Is it** _[garble]_ **in your** _[breaks up]_ **office? Someone** _[too low to hear]_ **in meetings? Someone you’ve** _[garble]_ **?”**

“I can’t make it out,” Vaughn growled, Marshall rewinding a bit and turning up the volume.

**“Who is it, Sydney?** _[too low to hear]_ **Is it** _[garble]_ **here in your field office?** _[too low to hear]_ **to in meetings?** _[garble]_ **worked with before?”**

“What’s she doing here?” Marshall’s finger touched the screen before clicking rewind, his hand smacking Vaughn’s elbow as the agent stood with the earpieces pushed against his head.

“Play it again, Marshall,” he ordered, stopping when he saw him pointing at something.

“No, look. She’s...blinking at the camera.”

He was right. It was slow, her attempt to hide it, but it was obviously morse code. She repeated it only once, Michael frowning in confusion.

“H, E, R, E. She spelled ‘here’. Why?” The question was rhetorical, Marshall shrugging anyway. “One more time, as loud as it will go,” Vaughn ordered putting the headphones back on, closing his eyes, and pressing them as hard as he could over his ears.

**“Who is it, Sydney? I just need a name.** _[too low to hear]_ **someone that works here in your field office? Someone you sit next** _[garble]_ **?** _[too low to hear]_ **you’ve worked with before?”**

Vaughn’s eyes went wide, Marshall looking up with bated breath waiting for an explanation. “He said  _ here _ . Oh my god,” he panted, eyes glazing over unseeing as he stared off in no particular direction, “that son of a bitch.” Yanking the headphones off, Vaughn bolted back toward the conference room. 

“Wait!” Marshall hopped up and followed with hurried, awkward strides, though Vaughn didn’t answer nor did he slow down.

Barging back into the room with the techie on his heels, “that bastard brought her back to Los Angeles. She’s in the city; she’s been here the whole time.”

Half a dozen people were on their feet instantly, Kendall quieting the voices down before taking over. “Do  _ they _ know this? The Alliance watching the feed?”

"I don't think so," Vaughn panted out of breath.

Will, still in shock, was the first to answer, “every  _ single  _ person in this room missed the hint. It wasn’t until she said Vaughn’s first name that we even thought something had happened. It’s the one thing  _ she  _ could have said to catch  _ our _ attention and no one else's."

“This doesn’t leave this room. I need volunteers, people. If you have extraction and tactical insertion training, I want you to get with Agent Weiss who will be team lead. You be ready to go as soon as we have a location.” Weiss left the room with a determined step, half a dozen following intent on volunteering. Michael was stopped only because of Kendall's fingers suddenly grasping the front of his shirt and keeping him in place.

“Mister Flinkman, you find her. I don’t care how you do it, but I want a location A.S.A.P..” He lowered his eyes, turning and speaking to someone at his left, “I need PR up here,” he said quietly. “Jack, Vaughn, and Will - come with me.”

The teams split, and though two of them were desperate to stay and watch the feed despite the content, they rose and followed. The third was connected to Kendall by a fierce grip and was all but dragged from the room. Vaughn’s want to follow Weiss and prepare for Sydney's extraction was strong, just not stronger than the director's grasp.

Ending up in Kendall's office, they stood before the large desk as the man released his captive and fell into his seat heaving a sigh. 

“None of you three are going to like what I have to say, but I’m just going to come out and say it.” The man’s voice was weary and Jack noticed that the multi-day stubble and deep circled eyes matched his own from what the mirror showed him this morning. "Look, I would have made this decision on my own and agree with what they have to say, so I'm prefacing my next statement with that. I spoke with the president this afternoon. Yes; the president. He, along with his national security advisors, the chief director of both the CIA, FBI, and NSA all came to the conclusion that we  _ cannot _ risk a rescue while that camera is streaming.”

Will surprised everyone by being the first to jump in. “What the hell does  _ that _ mean? What if he doesn’t end the stream? What...what if he’s gonna kill her in 30 minutes?”

Kendall sighed, his eyes breaking away and resting on the paperwork that had been piling up on his desk, “we have to wait.”

Jack and Vaughn felt lead drop in their stomachs knowing that Kendall was right, though their hearts screamed to fight back. Will saw their defeated faces and his face grew red. “This is bullshit.”

“Mister Tippin-”

“No. This is  _ bullshit _ , and you know it. With how much she’s done, you’re telling me it’s not worth even  _ risking _ a rescue?”

Jack’s shaking, low, tired voice was the last anyone expected to hear, “Will,” he swallowed the lump rising in his throat, “there are hundreds of pounds of high-density explosives buried in the sublevels of the Credit Dauphine building-”

The surprise was short-lived on the reporter's face. “There’s...no guarantee that it’ll be set off.” He tried to sound confident, but the small tremor between his words belied this attempt.

“We can’t risk that.” Kendall’s bark was as soft as any had heard.

“So we...we evacuate the-” Vaughn was shaking his head, his arms folding over his chest defensively as his voice gave out.

“If the people in that cell see us rescue her, it’ll break the rule that is the foundation of SD-6 and every other SD cell: secrecy. They are  _ all  _ taught that no matter how bad it gets, rescue won’t be attempted if anyone outside the organization would be made aware of their existence.”

“But-”

“Will,” Michael ground out, “we can’t until the stream goes dead. No...no matter how much we want to.” He couldn’t meet the pleading blue eyes, his own tear-filled orbs directed to the edge of the wooden desk. He sucked in a shuddering breath as his chin quivered.

“She doesn’t deserve that,” Tippin groaned as hot tears ran down his cheeks.

Every head avidly nodded in agreement, her father jumping back in. “Sydney would volunteer to take their place, you know she would. She...she’d never want us to do something that would put innocent lives at risk.”

“None of you are allowed on the extraction team,” Kendall changed the subject abruptly knowing it was a hard transition, but that it would be even harder for at least one of them to accept. Seeing fiery objection leap into Vaughn’s eyes, right on cue, he held up his hand stopping the young man from speaking as he continued. “How long have you been awake? I mean, in six days, how many hours have you actually slept?”

_ ‘Counting the hours that Jack drugged me? Like, 2 hours a day...maybe.’ _ Michael’s mind answered. “That’s not the point; I can still help.”

“You will be helping, but it’ll be from here.” Someone else opened the door behind them, the three recognizing the lawyer-looking woman from the first twenty hours. Kendall beckoned her to join them and continued as he saw the other three try and compose themselves.

“Right now, the five of us need to come up with what happens after that feed goes down. Flynn’s never streamed for this long, and how tired he is, is showing. Odds are good that he’ll end it soon, and that’s when Weiss and the team goes in. We just...have to assume that’s the order of things. Brenda,” he gave up the soapbox gladly, his voice tired and raspy.

“The media is heavily covering the feed, and the clip of her beating the shit out of him is the most viral thing the internet has seen in years. We still get daily requests for confirmation that she’s CIA, which we still have to deny. If she survives and the extraction team isn’t a retrieval team, we need to make her dead. Uh...paperwork dead, not dead, dead.”

Kendall spoke back up, “Agent Bristow will be declared KIA. It cannot get back to the Alliance that she’s been rescued; if that’s what happens, it’ll compromise the entire SD-6 office as well as every ounce of information Jack and Sydney collected in Luxembourg. Not to mention a damn city block of innocent people at risk from the C-4 in the sublevels. They still don’t know what we know, and we need to keep it that way or everything she, and you Jack, fought for will be moot.”

“Witness protection?” Jack’s voice was steely and hard, and the other two could tell that he was trying to hold back every emotion threatening to bubble to the surface. Brenda shook her head.

“It's too much of a risk. This website was global, and with around the clock news coverage, those that never even searched out the link know everything about her that’s out there. Hell, CNN did a biopic from a half dozen people that shared classes with her in college. Her face is everywhere. I mean...there’s nowhere for her to hide.” The woman looked back and forth between pages in a file folder.

“She’ll stay here,” Kendall announced. “It’s the least we can do. This way she can still be involved in bringing the Alliance down, and she’ll be safe. The bottom floor of this facility is only accessible by access card, and I’m the only guy that can program the cards. Give me a list of those you want to know she’s alive, everyone else will be kept in the dark. And I mean  _ everyone else _ \- the president won’t even know. The five of us will know - and anyone else you put on that list, but you keep that number low.”

Jack balked, “I’m more than willing to spend the rest of my life in a basement, but I don’t want that for my daughter. Is there nowhere we could place her that would be away from everything that just tortured her for a week?”

Kendall chuckled, “Jack, I get it. But if you were Sydney, wouldn’t you want a chance at revenge?”

**…**

Flynn took a fair amount of pride in the harsh sobs and ragged breaths from the woman before him, his hands on her shoulders setting fire to the dislocated shoulder causing her to slump slightly left. 

“Forearms are pesky, aren’t they, darling? I thought maybe I could do it in one fell swoop,” he commented wryly, stepping back and seeing her lower left arm at an odd angle between the elbow and the bound wire around her wrists holding them together behind the chair.

She caught her breath, trying to suck air in through her nose and blow it out through her mouth, willing her mind to partition the pain behind some kind of filter. But each time he touched her skin made her muscles tense and renewed the throbbing ache despite the machine not being connected.

“Tomorrow’s our last day together, Sydney.”

“Quitter.” 

Flynn chuckled. “Through everything, my biggest disappointment is that I couldn’t break you. I mean...you’re  _ broken _ , sure, but I really hoped to get something out of you.”

“Sorry to...disappoint.”

He rolled his eyes and ran his finger down her misshapen forearm making her whimper and scrunch her face as the muscles tightened around the broken bones. “Even if you just begged me to kill you I’d consider it a success. Screw the intel, love, I don’t even care anymore.”

“I...” she blinked as more tears dropped down well-worn trails on her cheeks. He moved forward and crouched before her, so she met his eyes exuding all the fight she had left. "I...won't...break for you."

Flynn scoffed and rose, sitting in the chair. "Just give up, Sydney - no one cares that you’re here. They’re  _ still _ not claiming you, you know.”

“You first.”

"We got a call from your father. We thought he ghosted you, but no longer. He begged for your life, darling."

Sydney hung her head low and sighed as much as she could past the painful stitch in her ribs that flared up into her shoulder. "Did he...threaten you?"

"Oh no, he was timid as a deer."

She gave a slight shake of her head, "nice try."

It was his turn to sigh, which turned into a groan as he rose and made his way back behind her trembling figure. She gasped and sobbed as he flicked her arm with a sadistic smile, “shall we keep going?”

**…**

"I...I...I..." Marshall’s stutter made Vaughn want to punch him, though he knew that reaction was born from extreme stress and a lack of sleep. 

“Focus,” he snapped.

“I think I...found her,” he typed rapidly, the group around him not expecting that answer as they crowded closer around his workstation. The wave of excitement was palpable, and even side conversations were higher pitched with the news.

Jack leaned in with a palm flat against the top of Marshall’s desk, “where is she?”

For once, Marshall ignored the man and kept typing. “I...when you mentioned L.A., I searched through the points one by one.”

Will crossed his arms over his head, “all 70,000?”

“Yeah.”

“Holy shit, you did that in,” Will looked at his watch, “one hour?”

Marshall rolled his eyes, “well... _ I _ didn’t; I wrote a program to do it. I found three signals that bounced around L.A. - they didn’t...really...register on the list because we were, you know, looking in Europe. Plus, we just assumed those signals were coming  _ to _ us, but we were wrong. They’re almost complete, no degradation.” He began typing again, two minutes skipping by as he became engrossed in what he was doing. No one wanted to pester him with more questions, however, as he’d been the only one to get close enough to a location the entire time.

“Does that mean you can triangulate?” Weiss asked from behind the group, bouncing from his left to right foot itching to get the extraction team close and pull his friend out of reach from this sadistic freak. He was in near full tactical gear and stood out like a sore thumb in the crowd of rumpled business casual.

Jack almost took a smack to the face as Marshall threw his arms in the air with an excited shriek, the map on his screen showing three nodes in a triangle with a dot in the center. While everyone else celebrated, Jack’s face fell. While everyone else shouted and applauded, his heart sunk low with sadness before quickly refilling with rage.

“Son of a bitch,” he growled, stepping away to another terminal and typing furiously. Records and files opened one at a time beginning to overlap. While others were busy congratulating Marshall on many days of hard, sleepless work, Vaughn and Weiss moved to see what the elder Bristow was doing. The scowl on his face was eerie and out of place with the news they’d just received, which usually wasn’t a good sign.

The two younger agents saw his shoulders slump as he leaned down over the keyboard with his palms flat against the desk, head hung low. “Jack, what’s up?”

"Credit Dauphine Central L.A. offices. Sloane mentioned once how impressive their  _ conference rooms _ were. She's there. She's been ten minutes away this whole time." Jack's words dripped with rage, his steel-blue eyes like a hot flame as he gripped the desk with white knuckles. Michael had attributed the slump of his shoulders to fatigue and regret, but it was simply the father trying not to throw something across the office.

Michael had never heard that tone from the man and realized that every time Jack had been angry at him in the last two years, he hadn’t really been  _ angry _ .  _ This _ was anger.  _ This  _ was rage. And he felt it too. The Alliance was evil enough to force them all to watch her tortured, but this was the icing on a shit cake: she had been just three blocks away.

Kendall gathered up papers and moved away from the excited crowd bunched around the techie’s desk, “Agent Weiss, get your team en route. Everyone that can bear it, conference room: now!”

Feet scrambled and there wasn’t a bare space left. The half a dozen people that had stayed behind included the medical and psychological staff and a single tech analyst, and they all looked sick to their stomachs. It dropped a lead weight of worry into Vaughn’s stomach, his eyes jumping to the screen. Something had changed. He’d become accustomed to seeing her grimaces of pain here and there, but her face right now was the definition of agony.

“What happened?”

“He broke her arm. Subsequently, her shoulder dislocated. It’s...been rough.” The man looked sad and angry all at once, though when the flood of people streamed into the room, he was thankful that it pulled their attention from the streaming horror show.

Kendall took over. "We have a location.” He let the team cheer, his hands raised to calm them back down. “This is the part that I don’t want to say out loud, and the part that you don’t want to hear,” the director’s voice was oddly unsteady, and he looked down at the papers scattered on the table before sighing. “We wait until this session ends.”

Shouts, hollers, angry voices, it all erupted the moment the words left his mouth. He let them rant for a moment before attempting to corral the din.

“We...listen! Her extraction  _ has  _ to be done without the Alliance knowing, and that means we wait until the camera goes dark. I know it’s been hard; I know that, and I’m sorry to make it just that much harder, but today is the  _ last _ day she sits in that chair, I promise you that.”

A contemplative silence filled the room, save for her ragged breathing over the speakers keeping them all on edge. One of the psychologists spoke up, timid at first. “Can I point out the obvious elephant in the room?” Kendall waved his hand and took his seat, “what if she doesn’t survive to extraction?”

You could hear a pin drop. “We...we would switch from extraction to recovery. Either way, she’s coming home.”

The room went silent, which wasn’t what the bald-headed man expected - he genuinely thought half a dozen at the table would jump across to punch his lights out. 

“If this bastard sticks to his timetable we have one more day. The best-case scenario is that she’s rescued tonight, or whenever he disconnects the stream. Weiss and the team are en route and will be less than a block away waiting for the go-code.”

The same doctor spoke up again, “I think he’s too unstable and reckless at this stage for us to assume that he’s going to let it go another day. He’s gotten increasingly violent, and admitted verbally he didn’t care about the intel less than an hour ago. Not to mention that this has been the longest session at,” he looked at his watch, “going on fifteen hours.”

Medical chimed in. “The human body is a remarkable machine and she is tough as nails, but we’re talking about massive amounts of blood loss, critical dehydration, systemic shock, and subsequent infection. This is what I  _ can _ see. What I  _ can’t  _ see is the myriad of broken bones and damage from internal bleeding. It is  _ not _ going to get any better. We should risk it; we can risk it. Send the team in, damn the camera. Let the world see us rescue someone that  _ needs _ rescuing.”

Others agreed with a rumble, though dissenting opinions were silent shaking heads rather than any outward noise. The error in their thinking was that Kendall was entertaining alternatives in the first place.

“I’ll take personal responsibility as head of this task force for whatever happens to Sydney Bristow and the possible PR nightmare that  _ will _ occur if she dies on camera. We will wait until the stream ends. At that moment we’ll switch to the operational vest and helmet-mounted cameras and audio for the extraction process.”

“But sir-” the medical expert pressed.

Interrupting, “we  **_wait_ ** .”

**…**


	17. Turn It Off

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [](https://www.flickr.com/photos/190971129@N06/50581680141/in/dateposted/)

No one could have predicted the phone call. It wasn’t a ring but a vibrating buzz against the wooden desk that pulled Flynn's head up from what he was doing, momentarily saving the ring finger on Sydney's right hand. He let go of the digit and rose, crossing the room to pick up the cell.

The group in the conference room listened with rapt attention to the one-sided conversation.

“Yes sir, I think it’s gone quite well. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to get the intelligence you asked-” he must have been interrupted as his sentence abruptly ended, and he walked around the room with the phone wedged between his ear and shoulder in full view of the camera.

“She’s tough enough to go one more day. I’ll stick by my schedule if you-” another interruption; expecting to see frustration, they saw obedience. “You’re sure?”

Flynn began nodding, and while everyone hoped that Sydney had been able to glean any words from the other side of the conversation, she’d spent the better part of another hour with her eyes tightly closed trying to regulate her breathing. Whatever compartmentalization she’d been able to do the past six days was gone, and she was unfortunately useless as a source of information. She no longer had the wherewithal, stamina, or ability to fight, and her attention was not on the man in the room but on herself as she tried to mitigate the waves of pain cascading through every inch of her body.

“If you’re sure. My team and I can be out of here in an hour.”

All eyes flew to the director, the man propping his elbows on the table and burying his face in his hands. He was the only one that could direct the team in the van down the street to proceed with extraction or wait to attempt recovery, and though he’d been hoping there would be no need to make such a decision, that time was nearing.

“Well there’s battery mode, is that what you’re asking?” There was a pause in the conversation, Flynn made his way to the camera and dragged a finger across her shoulder as he went, the tightening of the muscles from her flinch making her whimper. “Looks like...one hour and a few minutes of battery life. We could just leave it plugged in if-” interruption.

“Oh, yes sir,” he said through another devilish grin as his eyes focused on the bound, struggling agent. “I can do it. Do you need me to clean up?” Another gap in the conversation setting the conference room on the edge of their seats.

Nothing so far in these sessions had panicked Jack more than that single mumbled sentence. He knew what it meant; he’d asked it before as an interrogator for both CIA and SD-6 black operations.  _ ‘Do you need me to clean up’ _ was on repeat through his brain giving his eyes a glassy, unfocused sheen.

Flynn nodded despite the fact that the man on the other side couldn’t see. “That works for me. I’ll expect payment as usual by midnight. I’ll get things prepped on this end and be out in an hour, tops. Also, I’m going off the grid for a bit. The next time you have a job like this: don’t call.” He hung the phone up and tossed it back on the desk.

He sat for probably two full minutes of silent contemplation, his swollen face a mask of thought. His eyes darted back and forth as meandering thoughts pulled his attention away from the present. Cradling his broken hand for a moment, he reached into the drawer to extract another syringe of morphine. The soothing relief came in the next minute or so, and he listlessly tossed the needle into the corner of the room as fatigue slumped his shoulders.

A yawn opened his mouth, though a wince and the gentle cupping of his bruised and offset jaw made him cut it short. It also snapped him back to the present. He pushed off the desk and squared his shoulders, a cocky grin tilting his stitched upper lip.

“Time’s up, love. Anything you want to tell me?” He slid his left hand completely into his pocket, but the right was covered with the bulky wrap leaving only his fingers to fit in the other side. 

Sydney swallowed hard against the emotional bubble constantly pressuring the back of her throat. A part of her soul flooded with relief that it would be over soon, and that part was larger than the little chunk that wished she had more time. The little chunk was louder, however.

_ ‘They need more time to find you. Tell him something.’ _ The panicked primitive part of her brain still fought for survival.

_ ‘I’m not telling him anything. They know where I am and they aren’t here - they decided it was too much of a risk.’ _ She closed her eyes and dipped her head low.

_ ‘ _ **_Tell him something_ ** _. You’re supposed to have one more day.’ _

_ ‘I don’t want one more day. Not like this.’ _

He saw her lips move, though no sound was audible, so he leaned forward a bit, tilting his head to hear. “What was that?”

Sydney couldn’t do more than whisper - anything else was too difficult, her eyes staying closed as she frowned. “Quitter.”

He laughed and squatted down in front of her, his hand on her knee making her jump, her eyes slitting open to let in enough light to illuminate the vague shape of him. “I’ll really miss you, love.” 

She rolled her eyes in response but didn’t speak.

“Since you can’t give up what they want, they’ve decided they’re done with you. While I’d love nothing more than another day to make you pay for my face and fingers, I literally wash my hands of you. You’ve been a huge pain in my ass, and  _ way  _ not worth the price.”

He stopped what he was doing and looked pensive. “Well, okay; maybe. I mean...one  _ million _ dollars,” he left off and moved back to what he’d been doing.

He packed up the machine, rolled his tools into their cases, and shoved it all into a duffle bag that had been stored under the desk. The two assistants hurried into the room to help scrub their presence away. The only thing left plugged into the camera was the ethernet cable, Flynn fiddling with the settings and unplugging the power cord.

“Mark the time, CIA, you have 1 hour and 17 minutes of battery remaining. The clock is ticking.” He handed the bag off to an assistant as they hurried from the room, Flynn staying behind with a knife pointing down from the grip of his hand. The weapon made a small tap as he set it atop the desk.

“You sure you don’t want to give me anything that can postpone this, darling?”

Sydney frowned and looked up, meeting his eyes. “Second thoughts?”

Flynn laughed, “not at all. I’m going to enjoy killing you.”

“Then get it over with.”

The Brit tisked, “maybe I did break you.” He began one of his maddening slow circles, pacing the room with hands behind his back and voice soft and serene.

"You must be feeling very unimportant, Sydney. It's been six days and not one federal agent has broken down my door." 

Flynn heard her small sigh, though she stayed quiet. It had been a while since she’d played the silent game with him, but he smiled all the same.

"Does no one love you enough to save you?"

She stayed quiet, her eyes staring at a dirty spot on the cement wall behind the desk as her pain-addled mind sorted through her thoughts.

“Are you really going to give me the silent treatment? I thought we were really getting on, Sydney.”

"I...I don't have any delusions. No knight in...in shining armor is gonna come through that door." Each word was a pained harsh whisper, her voice dry, emotional, and raw. Whispering was easier on her sore throat, however, so she kept it up.

"You didn't expect a rescue, love?" He mocked, continuing his rounds.

Sydney's tongue tried to wet her lips though it was just as dry, and exhaustion felt like a lead weight pressing on her shoulders. “They made a choice.”

Flynn stopped walking and flopped into the adjacent chair. “What choice was that? To let you be tortured to death? Your boss sucks, darling.”

Sydney looked up into his eyes, "I'd make the same choice," she said quietly.

Flynn's eyebrows rose, "really?"

She didn't reply.

"You're telling me that if your partner was sitting where you are, and you were sitting where they are," he gestured toward the camera, "you'd not attempt a rescue?"

_ 'They would have to lock me in with mom.' _

"I didn't think so," the man said, not surprised by the look in her eyes. 

"That's why I'm...not the boss," she winced as she absentmindedly shrugged her shoulder catching the left side of her body on fire, pain cascading to her extremities.

Flynn leaned forward to rest his arms on his legs, his face contemplative. "It seems to me like they abandoned you. Just like your mother, your father, your friends, hell," he scoffed, "even a lover or two, am I right? I'm sure your therapist spends a lot of time on abandonment issues."

A moment of silence passed between the two as they locked eyes, hers filled with pain and hate and his filled with cockiness, pain, and hate.

She swallowed before speaking quietly and clearly. "Your organization has the ability to...to incinerate part of a city block of innocent people." Sydney paused with a grimace as her fingers twitched. "So yeah...this was the choice. I’m...I’m supposed to sit between you and them so...here I am."

Flynn rolled his eyes, a guttural grumble leaving his throat. "You are annoyingly patriotic, love."

"He...he’d be here if it wasn’t too much of a risk."

He made a noise with his mouth, lips buzzing his disdain over the fact that she was still thinking positively after everything they'd put her through.

"Daddy doesn’t even know where you are."

"I'm in L.A." She deadpanned, the shock on his face making her grin lopsided against the swollen left side of her mouth. "And they know because it...it's easy to blink morse code into a video camera."

The Brit's eyebrows shot up as surprise replaced cockiness for a moment. "I underestimated you, Sydney."

"From day one," she agreed.

"How did you figure it out tied in that chair?"

"Does it matter?" She countered.

Flynn shrugged and looked at his watch, "One hour and four minutes of battery remaining. I'm really just curious."

Sydney swallowed a couple of times against the dryness of her throat, though it didn't help slake her thirst. "You said…'here in my field office'. My office is in L.A., so it...it wasn't hard to put together."

He looked at his watch again. "That was nearly two hours ago. Where are they?"

"You should be," she grimaced, her voice going back to a raspy whisper, "be worried about leaving."

He grinned and rose, though something in her exhausted but still fiery gaze made him quizzically tilt his head. "Why is that?"

"Because...they’re...waiting for you. And I wish I could see...your...face," she ground out, "when they toss you into the back of a windowless van and...and take you to the field office's holding cells."

"You're serious," he chuckled. "Sydney-"

"You asked for this,  _ Flynn _ . Isn’t this what you...you wanted?" She saw a small amount of worry in his eyes, so she’d added a mocking inflection to his name. “You wanted to teach my dad a lesson, but did you really think that...that he wouldn’t find me?”

Pushing down the rush of blood that went from his heart to his head, adrenaline making his heart beat fast against his sternum, Flynn decided to push back. "You're suggesting that your father has known where you were but...but hasn't tried to rescue you." He tisked, "damn, darling. That's cruel, even for Jack Bristow."

Sydney smiled best as she could. "That...little...fear-filled tremor in your voice...is delicious." Hearing his own threat repeated made him wonder why he was still lingering.

Flynn made a show of lifting the knife from the edge of the desk, the metal handle cool in his palm. From what she could glean, which was blurry and unfocused at best, it wasn't the same blade he had used on her before. This was longer and a bit wider, but seemed to only double the length of his fist. Maybe four or six inches? 

_ 'That would be a big hole. Not great,'  _ her brain chided, but she continued to poke at him despite that fact.

" _ You _ set up the camera.  _ You  _ showed your face.  _ You  _ gave the hints." She took a few deep breaths against the ache, but didn’t stop. Truthfully, she wanted him to make him snap one last time. "But I…I’m sure the government thanks you for your...million dollar donation," she laughed, though it was cut off by a wince as the bouncing wiggled her dislocated shoulder and adjoining broken arm.

He moved around behind her, her eyes following as much as she could. His breath was whistling through his damaged nose in short, noisy pants, and she knew he was unraveling.

"You think you can be like me?” She panted against the effort of speaking louder than a whisper. “Do you really think you can...last more than a couple days with my...my father?" She paused and swallowed against the dryness at the back of her throat. “You think he...he doesn’t have punishment set up for you?”

His voice was tense behind her. "Do you think you could have gone one more day, Bristow?"

_ ‘He only calls you that before he breaks. Keep pushing and you’re gonna get stabbed,’ _ the Bristow side of her brain warned, but she’d honestly been done listening to that side for a few days now.

"The cells are...actually pretty nice, you know. The not so nice part will be meeting my friends, my father, co-workers-"

“Your crush?” Flynn jumped into the conversation.

“I’d avoid him. You’ll...do better with my father,” she said softly. “It won’t be six days. It’ll be years. And if this wasn’t my...my last stop - I’d enjoy seeing every drop of blood you’re gonna spill.”

A stinging fire slammed into her damaged right side, his unbroken hand stabbing the knife between the bottom two ribs. The suddenness of the attack stole what little air she had left and a pained scream from behind clenched teeth scraped painfully from her dry throat. When she could finally take a breath she wasn’t able to get in more than a shallow watery gasp, the Brit breathing fiercely with his own adrenaline coursing excitement through his veins.

Everyone in the conference room gasped simultaneously, wincing at her ragged sobbing gasps.

"Oh, I know that sound,  _ Sydney, _ " Flynn ground out leaning close to her ear. "Look, love,” he ordered, his eyes peering down, her own following to see the knife embedded to the hilt in the lower right side of her ribcage. “And from the sound in the back of your throat, that right lung was good and punctured. Can you feel it?”

She  _ could  _ feel it. While she was hoping he was mistaken, the warmth spreading as a tickle under her ribs above her side was a telltale sign of internal bleeding. She'd had it before. Catching a breath was difficult, and after thirty seconds, she was still unable to suck in any more air than through a quick pant.

_ ‘What do you expect - there’s a knife in your chest.’ _

Flynn stood tall, the menacing gleam in his frosty blue gaze sparkling as he watched her close her eyes and try to regulate her gasps, though it didn’t seem to be working. "Fifty-eight minutes until the battery dies, darling. If you want to keep everyone you know and love from watching you die, try and last at least that long."

He leaned back down to her side, though spoke loud enough for those on the other side of the camera. 

"Maybe you  _ can  _ go for an hour with the internal bleeding that'll fill your chest cavity with blood. My experience has been that death won't come as quickly as you want, but I doubt you’ll make the full time. You’re too dehydrated and have lost too much blood already. But," he tossed his hands into the air, “if there’s one thing you’ve delighted in doing this whole damn week, it’s been proving me wrong. So go ahead, sweetheart. Prove me wrong one last time.”

His grip was tight and he twisted slightly as he yanked the knife out, a squirt of blood following it as the side of the cotton tank darkened with blood. It soon traveled to her hip to soak into the top of her trousers before beginning to pool on the metal of the seat, a few drops landing with a ‘pat pat pat’ onto the grate below.

Grabbing his cell and the remaining morphine syringes from the desk, he headed for the door. “If it means anything, I respect you almost as much as I hate you, Sydney Bristow."

**...**

She stayed awake as long as she could, but forty minutes after Flynn left, she passed out. The blood had been flowing from the base of the chair onto the floor, though it tapered off to a drip as time wore on. The color drained from her already pale face, then neck, then chest, and the medical staff continually said that she wasn't going to last the full hour.

"There’s only twenty minutes left. Have some faith." One of the doctors moved to the side of the room and put on a large pair of headphones, pressing them to her ears.

"She's still breathing, but it doesn’t sound good."

Kendall pointed, “you tell me the second that changes.”

They waited this way with Sydney figuratively dead to the world.

With about ten minutes left on the clock, she slowly gained consciousness. Her neck was stiff, but she was surprised at the lack of sharp pain radiating from her limbs. It took her brain a moment to realize that was probably a bad thing. Lack of feeling meant lack of blood, which, as she looked down at her soaked side at the sticky substance rolling down the edge of her leg to pool onto the chair, looked to be the right assessment.

Breathing was painfully difficult. Despite trying she could only get in a quarter of a breath with each attempt, and her shoulder kept her from sitting up straight to open her chest a little more. She felt a bit like a fish out of water. Spitting as best as she could, the blood landed next to the chair. She felt it in the back of her throat and wet on her lower lip and chin, the taste ever-present and nearly unnoticeable over the last couple of days.

The only good thing was that everything didn’t hurt as badly as it had before. She wiggled her fingers, the pain throbby but not sharp, but at least they still worked despite the fact she couldn’t really feel anything against the pads as they rubbed together. She blinked her blurry eyes looking slowly around the room to see that she was alone, her hazy gaze finally landing on the red light on top of the camera. 

_ 'Not alone.' _

"Damn," she whispered, talking any louder was just too much strain. Her words were stilted along with the panting breaths.

"Kinda…

hoped I'd…

wake up in…

Cancun."

The edges of her vision blurred in and out, and blinking wasn’t helping though she did it for a few more seconds before giving up. Her head throbbed in time with her broken left limb and she got the feeling that she was experiencing the death of a dozen brain cells each second as her chest struggled to let in oxygen, the inflation blocked by the blood and air inside and around her collapsed lung. If she didn’t bleed to death, she was well on her way to full hypoxia.

_ 'And then I suffocate. Hopefully I pass out and  _ **_then_ ** _ suffocate.' _

Strangely, she wasn’t scared. All she had to do was try and wait out the red light on the camera. She could do that. Of course, she had no clue  _ how much _ time that was since she’d fallen asleep. Had it been a large or small amount of that hour? She had no clue.

_ ‘I’m not sure passing out from pain and blood loss and lack of oxygen counts as sleeping.’ _

If Flynn had been telling the truth, it hadn’t been the full hour.

“I…

know you had…

had to choose.” 

Sydney hoped they could hear her as she realized that this would be the last chance to say goodbye, and that she should probably get it done before the light turned off. She leaned her head back a bit letting it rest on the uncomfortable metal top of the chair. 

“It’s okay. I…

it’s okay.”

Her eyes slipped closed and she sat quietly for nearly a full minute, onlookers thinking she’d fallen back to sleep. Kendall looked at his watch to see that just under six minutes remained, the nearly permanent crease in his brow getting deeper. The announcement a few seconds ago from the medical staff with the headphones pressed hard against both ears was that her breathing was critical, another doctor pointed out the blue tinge creeping into her lips past the blood and bruises.

Kendall picked up the radio, his voice solemn, “Alpha team, proceed to the entrance. Time remaining, 6 minutes.”

“Copy,” Weiss’ voice crackled, then everything went silent again.

Her brow furled as a twinge of pain poked up from her ribcage before flaring into her shoulder. This reopened her eyes, and her head lolled a little as it became harder to hold upright.

“I…

I'm sorry."

Swallowing mostly blood, happy that it was something for her dry throat, she pushed down the lump of emotion as tears ran familiar tracks to her jaw.

“It's okay. Just…

I’m..."

The conference room felt the tightening in their chests as each person realized that she was trying to say goodbye. She had no idea that a team was just outside the door waiting for the camera feed to go down. 

Sydney Bristow had cheated death as long as she could, and now that she was alone: she was done.

She slow blinked more tears down her cheeks, her eyes getting harder to hold open. 

“I…

I didn’t give…

them anything.” she loosed a small smile as another wave of tears refilled the tracks previously laid.

Her head lolled a bit, a dribble of blood hitting her chin as eyes fluttered closed for a minute, every single person swinging their heads about to the doctor wearing headphones. She nodded with fingers showing ‘ok’, though the wet gasps she heard weren’t going to keep the broken young woman alive much longer.

“I’m sorry…

I can’t…

I…”

Swallowing, she found enough strength to look into the camera one last time as she fought the losing battle to stay awake.

“Do me…

one favor.” 

Her chin quivered through the whisper, “turn it off.”

“You don’t…

don’t have to…

watch. Please…

turn it off.” The plead ended in a sob.

The conference room sat in silence for a few seconds, and the outburst from those around the table when the screen went black made Kendall look to his watch, the timer showing four minutes remaining. They’d overestimated; it was over. As he reached for the radio to signal Weiss to enter, the director swept relieved eyes across the room before spotting a young man standing next to the equipment with tears streaming down his cheeks and something clutched in his fist.

“It’s...it’s the one thing she asked us to do,” Paul said, the skinny analyst holding the end of the cable in his hand, unplugged and flopping from where it had been in the laptop for the last six days. Kendall’s stomach sank and his eyes turned back to the watch as he realized that time  _ wasn’t  _ up.

“Plug that back in,” one of the doctors ordered with a growl and a point.

Paul shook his head. “We already saw enough. Watching her die won’t make it less real. We failed her...and - and we get to live with that already. Seeing it won’t change that.”

Voices were turned on Kendall, pleading, ordering, begging, but the director merely shook his head and sunk over the table with his weight pressing the palms of his hands against the cool wood. The arguments shifted to others in the room, though most of the aggressive words overlapped and became nearly impossible to decipher. 

Those that agreed with the demand to return the feed to the screen moved to intercept Paul as he clutched the video cable against his chest, and those that agreed with him while wanting to honor Sydney’s request held others back from throttling the man.

Kendall finally lifted his head and looked toward the doctor, his stomach dropping as he spotted her hand wiping at her cheeks while the other pulled off the headphones. Others followed his gaze and the cacophony in the room came to a sudden, eerie end. 

She tossed them to the desk and shook her head with a sniffle, “she...she stopped breathing.”

**...**


	18. And She's Not

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [](https://www.flickr.com/photos/190971129@N06/50581756526/in/dateposted/)

“There’s really no good way to ask it, but how was the funeral?” Barnett's blonde hair caught the sunlight as she sipped from the green and white colored cup. The cafe down the street was a strange place to hold a therapy session, but she’d claimed they’d all been bottled up far too long the last two weeks and she’d wanted a coffee.

Vaughn's leg bounced as he sat across the table in his grey suit, his jacket slung over the chair beside him as sunglasses obscured his eyes. The large bronze coin bounced between his knuckles as he looked around the boulevard, intentionally avoiding eye contact with the psychiatrist despite the fact that she couldn’t see his behind the shades.

“I didn’t go. She would’ve hated it. You’d...you’d think the pope had died with how many people were there.”

Barnett nodded having heard on the radio that an estimated 50,000 had been in attendance for the march downtown, the casket driven to a military airfield bound for Arlington. While the CIA never could claim her as an asset, the president spoke on television and announced that she had been a “steward of the American people”, and had arranged for her to be laid to rest at the national cemetery. 

She followed his gaze and saw piles of flowers and candles, notes and pictures around the base of a nearby lamp post - a shrine mimicking dozens of others across the city. Sydney Bristow had become America’s sweetheart in just six days, and now that she was gone, the country mourned someone they had never truly known the way they always did: candle-lit vigils and memorials on street corners.

Barnett let him stew a bit, this their second required session since his agent had publicly died a week ago. “Did the field office do some kind of service? Did Jack?”

Vaughn nodded, hanging his head low. “Yeah,” he muttered, his voice watery.

“I was surprised when the radio said how many had attended the march.”

“A dozen channels showed her dying in 24-hour news cycles, there wasn’t any avoiding it. I still can’t turn on the TV.”

“Has the medication helped with sleeping the last few days?” He chuckled without a smile at her sudden subject change, surprised she didn’t make him expand on saying ‘her dying’ to deal with his feelings. He cocked a slight grin her way, reached up, and set the glasses atop his head. A heavy sigh left her lips as she saw the dark circles under his eyes.

“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. I know a lot of people have said that to you the last seven days, but...I really am. As much as I cautioned and as much as I hit you both with protocol, I know you didn't erase your feelings. And because of that, you didn’t just lose an agent, so...I’m sorry.”

Michael nodded, his eyes filling with tears as he replaced the dark shades. “Well, despite everything, the Alliance doesn't know we compromised their network. And...the operations we’re planning now can,” he sighed, “I dunno...make it worth it. That...that feels good, you know?”

The woman sent a comforting smile and agreed, the two lapsing into another bout of silence, each taking a drink of their coffee. “Tell me about Sloane.”

Michael scoffed, unable to keep the scowl at bay. “He just...walked in.”

“You met with him?” Vaughn nodded.

_ "I said I would only speak with Jack Bristow.” Arvin’s voice punched him in the gut, the green-eyed agent pushing the bile down and adjusting his tie before sitting across from the director of SD-6. _

_ "Mr. Sloane, I’m Michael Vaughn-” he was interrupted. _

_ "You’re not Jack Bristow.” _

_ "I understand that you said you would only speak with Jack," Michael interrupted in turn, “but that’s not going to happen. He sent me. So you can speak with me or go directly to a cell. Which would you prefer?” _

_ Arvin scoffed and dusted at the invisible specks on the arm of his perfectly pressed suit. “I'll wait for Jack.” _

_ "You ordered the death of his daughter, so instead...you get to speak with me.” Not meeting the suddenly focused and serious eyes, Michael continued as he leafed through papers he’d brought into the room. “Tell me what you came here for.” _

“How did he react when you said that?”

“He seemed...offended. I figured that I’d have to connect to him somehow, despite the fact that all I wanted to do was punch him in the face.”

She nodded and took a couple of notes on the pad next to the cup on the table. “Not punching him was smart. Even if the only thing you two shared was knowing the Bristow’s, at least you knew it would push his buttons. What did he say?"

_ "I gave her a chance,” Sloane said in a suddenly quiet voice. _

_ Arvin wasn’t prepared for the sudden and piercing glare he received from the young agent, and for the first time he noticed the tenseness in his jaw. The man’s shoulders were also tight, and Sloane quickly recognized the body language of someone that wanted to use extreme violence but was forced into utilizing words. _

_ "She was like a daughter to me, Michael Vaughn, so I did what I could to give her a chance at escaping. Do you think it was easy? Watching - watching him hurt her? Waiting for  _ **_someone_ ** _ to step in when I couldn't?”  _

_ The emotion in Sloane’s voice made Vaughn narrow his eyes forcefully point at the hurting older man. “You don’t get to talk about her with me.  _ **_Ever_ ** _. You get to tell me what you walked into a CIA field office to say, and that's it.” _

_ Arvin paused at the tone in the other man's voice. “We may only have one thing in common, Michael Vaughn, but that’s enough for me to speak with you. I do want to say that your excitement of having me sit for years in a cell providing you with nearly unlimited information is...misplaced.” _

_ Folding his hands impatiently over the folder of papers, Vaughn regarded him with annoyed green eyes and sighed. _

_ "You’re right when you said that...it was me. That  _ **_I_ ** _ did that to her.” The man paused, his shoulders slumping. “I didn’t think they would bring Flynn in when they-” Vaughn interrupted again. _

_ "I will not repeat myself: you  _ **_do not_ ** _ talk about her with me. If you want to give me information on the Alliance, you go right ahead, but bring  _ **_her_ ** _ up again, and you can go straight into holding.” _

_ Arvin lifted his eyebrows, somewhat admiring the candor so deeply embedded in the young man. “I won’t be going anywhere, Michael Vaughn. I do have information for you, but I’m here to make a deal.” _

_ "A deal?” _

_ The director nodded slowly, his eyes looking sad and resolved. “It affected me more than I thought it would. I’m tired,” he paused, “of a lot more than you could possibly know. I’ll help you finish what Sydney and Jack were doing, but I’ll only be able to do it from inside the Alliance.” _

_ "No.” _

_ "If my time as director of SD-6 is at all breached, anything you have right now or that I may give you today will be moot tomorrow. The only way you have me as an informant is if I maintain my freedom and status. You think I don’t know that you have Marcus Dixon and Marshall Flinkman?” _

_ "If you think that I’m going to let you walk out of-” _

_ "You were sent to talk with me, and this is me talking. You wouldn’t be sitting here if you didn’t know exactly who I was, and Jack wouldn’t have sent you if he didn’t trust you.” _

_ There was that flashing, warning anger again. “I’m here because Deputy Director Kendall determined that I had a lower chance of shooting you than Jack - though I’ll be honest, not by much.” _

_ "You’re too young to be Jack’s handler, he’d put you through a wall.” _

_ Vaughn stood and began packing up his papers, “if you don’t want to talk with me, I’ll arrange for the officer to take you to holding.” _

_ "You were Sydney’s, weren’t you?” The green flash happened again, the tenseness in the jaw doubling as Arvin sent the young man a soft smile. “Mister Vaughn, I’m offering you the Alliance to repent for my sins. I'm seeking forgiveness. Will you not take what's on the table because I have caveats?” _

_ Michael’s hand shot across the table and hauled the man up by the front of his suit. Though the fist clutching the expensive material was shaking, it was a tight hold and Sloane felt his feet come off the floor as the edge of the table bit into the bottom of his thighs above the knee. The rage in those watery jade depths threatened to swallow him, and Arvin felt his own pain bubble to the surface. It was quickly replaced by the sudden flop sweating nervousness that preceded being violently assaulted. _

_ Vaughn's voice was a low and deadly serious growl, “you...you killed the woman I love. You’ll  _ **_never_ ** _ get forgiveness from me.” The door burst open, Weiss standing with his hands out in an attempt to calm the situation clearly having seen the agent snap from behind the mirrored glass. _

_ "Vaughn,” he warned, Michael realizing he’d grabbed the head of SD-6 by the proverbial scruff and was holding him awkwardly over the metal table. Every muscle in his body screamed for him to punch the old man in the face, but instead he released his hold and watched with satisfaction at the fear flickering in Sloane’s eyes. The director straightened his tie and retook his seat, trying to look unaffected but failing behind his shaky hands. _

“Did you meet with him again after you’d calmed down?”

Vaughn shook his head. “No, Kendall did. And despite everything he’s done,” he swallowed the anger, “they let him go yesterday. He’s...he’s sitting at his desk six blocks up the street.”

“And?” Barnett prodded.

Michael frowned. “And what?”

“And she’s not.” She knew removing the band-aid had stung, and though his eyes were hidden and she couldn’t see the pooling tears, the taut lines around his mouth and the worry wrinkles of his forehead deepened. “Go home and get some rest; doctor’s orders. I’ll see you next week.”

**…**

Jack was mid-sip into his whiskey when the door across the hall slammed closed. The rooms were surprisingly soundproof, though sudden and explosive actions were hard to tune out. Standing, the glass still fisted in his hand, he opened his door and walked across before knocking lightly.

"What?" The muffled growl was short.

"Door locked?" Jack asked.

No reply. Testing the knob with his free hand it gave, so he moved into the room. Vaughn's coat was in a heap just inside the door, the young man in the middle of the room yanking off the tie and hurling it at the wall.

"How was the meeting with Barnett?" The older man's words were slurred and he took a break in the conversation to have another sip of the amber liquid.

"Jesus, Jack, it's 11:30 in the morning. Starting a little early today, don't you think?" Wanting to but stopping himself from yanking button-up open and popping the plastic pieces across the tile, he impatiently undid them one by one before pulling the shirt down his arms. It joined the growing pile on the floor.

" _ My _ meeting with Barnett is in thirty minutes, so I thought this would help." He took another sip.

"It won't." He growled and grabbed another long-sleeved shirt and pulled it on.

"Where’re you off to?"

Michael sighed. "I have a meeting with Sloane at the warehouse where I used to meet with Sydney. Because for whatever reason, Kendall thinks I can be his handler. So, my day just keeps getting better and better."

"Stop downstairs before you go. It'll help." Patting his shoulder Jack left, his drink now empty. Vaughn's hands flopped down mid-attempt at tying the silk around his neck, the loose ends drooping down his chest as he faced the ceiling and sighed.

_ "It will help,” _ he thought, looking at his watch. He didn’t have much time, but just thinking about it made him feel better, so he added it to the list. 

Grabbing a new coat and shrugging it on, he left the room and closed the door behind him. Jack’s entrance was open and Michael took a moment to lean on the frame, the elder seated and simply staring at the blank wall ahead.

“I spent eighteen months with you and Sydney trying to keep Sloane in the dark, and now...now I’m off to brief him with a counter mission.”

Jack sighed, “you and I don’t exactly have a neutral point of view when it comes to Arvin Sloane, but...I think that’s why you were assigned. If we do this right, it’ll fix everything.”

“Not everything,” Vaughn whispered, his eyes leaving and focusing on his shoes.

Sighing, Jack leaned back in the chair and crossed his arms over his chest. “No...not everything. But enough. Today will be the hardest day. After that,” he paused and gestured, less than sober, with his hand in the air, “tomorrow...the next meeting will be...easier.”

“You’re not eloquent when you’re drunk,” Vaughn grinned, Jack happy to see his mood lighten.

“Before you go,” lowering to a whisper, Jack maneuvered until his elbows rested on his knees as he leaned forward in the office chair. “How...how did you talk with Barnett?”

Michael thought for a moment, “the hurt is still there, Jack.”

The man shook his head. “How did you pretend to be crippled by the worst thing that could ever happen?” Jack hadn’t planned on Vaughn being his confidant the last few weeks, someone he’d share  _ anything _ with, but they’d surprised each other by growing closer rather than drifting apart. Each sought advice from the other on a daily basis.

“The room...the chair...her screams.” He saw the darkening of the steel-blue eyes and the sudden slump of the father’s shoulders. Pointing, “right there. It’s...it’s not hard to go back there, Jack. I wish it was. Would it be easier to tell her? Is she going to tell anyone else? Yes to the first, probably no to the second, but it doesn’t leave that floor for so many reasons. So...go back to that place and...let her dig you out. The tears will be genuine and you’ll feel like shit before, during, and after. Then go downstairs.”

Patting the frame Vaughn pushed away and headed down the hall, Jack’s voice calling out loudly to echo in the emptiness, “try not to kill him at the first meet, son.”

Michael chuckled in the brightly lit, white hallway. It still shocked him that the intimidating Jack Bristow occasionally called him son, usually just to get a reaction or drive home an important point - today, the latter. “If you never see me again, the warehouse is a murder scene and I’ll write you from Mexico.”

The father’s laugh followed him into the elevator.

**…**

The room was quiet, though after eight days he admitted that he no longer heard the beeping machines and sucking air. The young nurse was fidgeting with the wrap around the patient’s hand and wrist, the rows of stitches where surgery had taken place the day before a stark contrast against the pale skin. Pins had been implanted along each finger as well as the radius and ulna, the doctor confident that the bones would heal straight with this extra step and make physical therapy at a later date an easier process.

“You do have work, right? Like...an important job?” The young woman’s mock scolding voice put a smile on his face. 

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’m on my way out. How are things?”

“Well, my boyfriend broke up with me via text an hour ago since I’ve spent the last eight days living in a bunker and not making any contact with him, so I’m available if that’s what you’re asking,” she missed his wince as she secured the loose gauze wrap back in place, Vaughn moving to the other side of the bed and leaning in to press a kiss to the unconscious woman’s forehead.

“You’re a high school intern and I’m not on the market,” he mumbled, stepping back and crossing his arms over his chest, still expecting an update.

“I’m twenty-six and have two master's degrees in nursing and physical therapy,” she corrected. 

“God, really? Twenty-six?”

“You know,” she growled and left off her threat, the two enjoying barbs back and forth throughout the day and night. It passed the time and kept them entertained. She picked up the first of many syringes from a rolling tray and injected it into the I.V. drip to administer the medication. Looking up, she spotted the agent’s green eyes diverted to the bed and not paying attention to much else.

“She’ll be okay,” she reassured him again, same as she’d said to the few others that had been there that morning, the endless stream of the same five or six visitors keeping her company during her shifts.

“Anything new?” His usual question.

“No. It was the same as when you were here two hours ago. Doc says at least a month, and it’s been eight days. She isn’t gonna wake up just because you want her to,” she finished what she was doing and met his eyes over the prone patient, a sassy smirk tilting her lips. “Go do important government things,” she ordered, pointing at the door.

“Yes, ma’am,” he laughed, leaning in to brush another kiss against the warm, pale forehead before turning to leave the room.

“I know I can’t compete with comatose Wonder Woman here, but I’m a great catch,” her voice called out as he hit the doorway.

“I’ll tell the guys upstairs,” Vaughn laughed as he left, the door closing softly behind him.

**…**


	19. Not On The List

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [](https://www.flickr.com/photos/190971129@N06/50584451473/in/dateposted/)

Two Weeks After Rescue

Butterflies danced in Vaughn’s stomach as the first gate lifted. Never in his wildest dreams had he thought that Kendall would ever allow him to speak with the captive in the third cell down the row, but here they were dressed in suits and clean-shaven waiting for the gates to open.

Michael genuinely didn’t know what he was going to do when he saw the man’s face or heard his voice. He had promised to stand back and say nothing but wasn’t sure if he would be able to keep his word. The second gate rose, the two men continuing to move forward. 

“Mr. Davis,” Kendall’s voice was tight.

The man behind the glass was lying on the metal cot with hands resting over his stomach, features blank as he faced the ceiling with eyes closed.

“Ah; the powers that be come down to converse with the condemned,” Flynn said jovially, the sound of his voice putting the men on edge and forcing their minds back to the video screen in the conference room.

The Brit sat up slowly and stretched before tugging the black tee down around the waist over the dark blue pants. “Friends call me Flynn,” he offered in greeting.

“I’m not your friend.” Kendall opened and looked down into a file folder.

Vaughn couldn't stop his glaring green eyes from burning a proverbial hole through the glass and into the man's forehead. He knew he would have a hard time seeing him face to face, but he was taken aback at the level of rage that built up behind his heart.

Jerome Davis, better known as Flynn, had been in this cell for two weeks with no knowledge that he’d failed his most simple task: killing Sydney Bristow. Exactly as she’d warned, a team grabbed him as he left the building. The assistants were carted off to another security facility with the NSA while the torturer was brought to the JTF holding cell where he had been sitting this whole time with little to no human contact.

“And who are you? I know you.” Turning his curious blue eyes on Vaughn, Kendall snapped his fingers to pull the attention back.

“We want some information from you if you’ll cooperate.”

Flynn leaned his shoulder against the glass and crossed his feet at the ankles, the hard cast over his lower right wrist gleaming white in the overhead lights. “What do  _ I _ get out of it?”

“Probably nothing.”

“Then why would I cooperate?”

Kendall shrugged and turned to leave, the man’s voice calling him back, “you might as well tell me what you want.”

“We want the bank account information of the men in the Alliance that hired you.”

Flynn tisked through his teeth. “That’s a tall order. Who  _ are _ you?” He looked back at Vaughn. “Mr. Clean is clearly the boss, but you look damn familiar and it’s driving me crazy. I’ve  _ seen  _ you before.”

Kendall cleared his throat before Michael could say anything, though the younger of the two hadn’t planned on giving Flynn the satisfaction of an answer, “my name is Director Kendall. Will you give us the information, Mister Davis?”

“Ugh, that’s what you’d call my father. Call me Flynn.”

“I already told you,” the Director growled, “I’m not your friend. You murdered one of my agents;  _ she _ was my friend. So you’re either going to give us information while you sit and rot, or you’ll just sit and rot. This is the only human contact you’re gonna get, so it's really up to you.”

Flynn thought for a moment, though his eyes hadn’t left Michael’s, and he loosed a crooked grin as his eyes lit up in recollection. “You’d meet with her at that warehouse a couple times a week. That’s...that’s you.” At the raised eyebrows from both on the other side of the glass, “yeah, it’s amazing what you can see and do with drones these days.”

Vaughn felt his muscles tense.

Kendall once again tried to intervene. "I'm only going to ask one more time."

“You’re the guy that sent her on missions.” Flynn grinned. “If you hadn’t royally screwed up, all this,” he said quietly, gesturing around him, “could have been avoided. Director Kendall would be organizing little missions and  _ Michael Vaughn _ here would still be meeting in that warehouse with his super hot agent.”

The Brit laughed and spotted Vaughn’s hands curl into fists, deciding to push a little farther. “Now, I know your boss is standing here, and her incredibly scary father is probably watching through some security feed, but be honest: did you ever...you know,” he wiggled his eyebrows, “with your agent?”

“You son of a bitch,” Michael growled, tipping his hand.

Kendall set a hand to the young man’s shoulder, though anger was building in his own stomach and was threatening to come out in a stream of not so friendly language. “We  _ will not _ be discussing any part of our SD-6 operations with you. Ever,” he ordered, trying to match Vaughn’s threat to make it seem like a reaction that could happen with any of his staff. It didn’t.

Flynn faked a surprised gasp, “you did, didn’t you?” He knew it was a risk, but it was worth it to stick it to his captors. He’d decided that he’d be as harmfully belligerent as possible whenever they decided to meet with him.

At the Hulk-like rage he saw in Michael Vaughn’s eyes, something dawned on the criminal. “You’re the crush,” he whispered.

“We’re done here.” Kendall severed the meeting and closed the paper-filled folder with a floof as he waved his other hand to the guard on duty and ordered him to lift the gates. Forcing his agent to turn away from the glass, the two men faced down the hallway as the barriers lifted much too slowly for their liking, each breathing heavily through flaring nostrils.

“Well,  _ Agent  _ Vaughn,” Flynn said loudly as the two men stood waiting for the rising metal to let them out. “I don’t doubt it was amazing to fuck her when she wanted it, but know that  _ taking it _ was just as good.”

**…**

Four Weeks After Rescue

Dixon lifted the blue chalk and rubbed it on the end of the pool cue in preparation for his next shot. Vaughn had rolled the sleeves of his button-up shirt against the crooks of his elbows as the clack of two balls making contact ended with a groan when one didn’t rumble into a pocket.

“Lemme ask you something, Vaughn.”

“Sure,” he acquiesced.

“Did Sydney ever have a meltdown moment after a mission with me? You know, after she’d started working with you,” Marcus asked, Michael frowning with a pause as he watched the other agent line up his shot.

“What the hell is a meltdown moment?” The shot missed. 

The game was just an excuse to have something to do while conversing, and the more shots they missed the more time they had to talk. They’d spent the last few weeks getting to know each other, but the powers that be had decided Marcus Dixon was to be left in the dark about Sydney’s official status. This made each conversation a painful reminder of yet another truth they were keeping from the honorable man.

“You know, the other side of Sydney’s coin.” Dixon looked up and saw the jealous confusion in Vaughn’s eyes and winced. “Look, I’m not trying to compete, please don't think that. I'm just trying to better understand the person she was these last two years. I mean, we both lost our partner, you know? I'm just trying to connect some dots."

Michael held up a hand, "Dixon, I know that you knew Sydney far better than I did. You were her partner for seven years. I didn’t mean to get defensive."

A few seconds passed as they eyed each other across the table. 

"Sydney has two sides; I know you've seen them. Half is a super bad-ass, compartmentalizing, hyper-aware genius. The other half shows up after things calm down. The...the broken vulnerability. She soaked my shoulder nearly a dozen times in the first few years we worked together."

Michael was relieved and it showed on his face, so Dixon continued.

"The first time I saw it was in Sao Paulo. It was her first field mission with me and I'd really only known her from her file. Which...was impressive, but it was still just training courses and seminars."

Dixon pointed at the table asking whose shot it was, Michael shrugging and gesturing to the other agent to take the shot. Marcus grinned and lined up the stick on the cue ball.

"Sydney was in the van. This was back when she was eager and happy to do anything under the sun, including analysis and sitting in the van." There was a clink just before the red striped ball thumped into the left corner pocket. 

"I got in too deep. Maybe...maybe I got cocky trying to impress my new partner," they shared a knowing grin, "and I found myself with a black eye, broken ribs, and kneeling on the floor of some shitty office with a gun to my head."

Vaughn grimaced as he lined up an angle on the blue solid, the edge of the cue hitting the damn striped green slightly in the way sending the two off in opposite directions with his ball coming to rest nowhere near a pocket.

"I heard her say she was on her way over coms," Dixon chuckled. "I couldn't exactly tell her to stay put or they'd know I was bluffing when I said I'd come alone. Out of nowhere, this guard gets kicked in the face a split second before the second guy at the door takes one to the groin. It was...like taking the lid off a bottle of lightning."

Michael smiled remembering how many times he'd read about the amazing things she'd done on missions, only seeing first hand a few moments during the select times they were able to go together.

"But the third guy was just too far for her to reach. The hammer cocked with that - that familiar click, and before I knew, 'bam, bam'." Dixon slammed the stick twice into the linoleum floor driving his point across and making the young man across the table jump.

"When I opened my eyes, surprised that I was still alive, the guy was on the floor and she stood with a gun in her hand. It was steady as a rock; not a wiggle at the end of the barrel."

Dixon shook his head a bit, "the first was a perfect shot, she hadn't even needed the second. Straight through the heart; he was dead before he hit the ground."

Leaning over the table Marcus took the next shot, Michael realizing that he'd inadvertently set up an easy one on the green striped bastard dead on to a side pocket. It sank without issue.

"It wasn't until she got me to the van that I really knew what was going on, and by then we were halfway to the hotel. She got me to my room and bandaged me up, and when I finally looked her in the face," Marcus shook his head, sad reminiscence clouding his features. 

"What?"

"I'd never seen more tears in someone’s eyes than hers. I mean...they were brimming. She was barely holding it together. She broke when I asked what was wrong, and all she said was 'I killed him', and that was it. Yeah, she knew it was him or me, and yeah, she knew it was what she had to do. But," he stopped, "it killed her that she'd taken someone's life. At that point, I knew that you couldn't have the bad-ass agent with a mind like a steel trap that can kick the crap out of the bad guys without also having that other, fragile side. It made her who she was and kept her human through everything we did - everything we’d seen."

Leaning over to take another shot he missed, though Vaughn was no longer paying attention to the game. He took in the story, so different from the monotone details in her file, and thought for a few moments.

“When she calmed down and said she was sorry, I told her never to apologize about that again. I said that...that not all missions will go this way or take this turn, but when they do? Having a meltdown just proves that you’re human. So, we kinda called ‘em meltdown moments after that. I was just hoping that...nothing I did during a mission had ever given her one of those.”

Vaughn’s mind went screaming to one place:  **Badenweiler** . As honest as he wanted to be, there was no way he was going to tell Dixon  _ that  _ truth. So he lied.

"She had meltdown moments, but not because of you or anything you did on missions. Because of her father? Mother? Sloane? Missions in general? Yeah. Plenty of meltdowns for those. Did we argue about telling you the truth? Yeah. She didn't have meltdowns when she had to lie to you, it made her angry. She didn’t cry about it, she wanted to fight me every time I suggested something that affected you on a mission."

Letting his words land, he finally sunk the pesky blue solid into a corner pocket, two more shots following until all that remained for him was the shot on the eight. 

“Will you answer something for me? Honestly?” Dixon asked, Michael nodding as he leaned over and wedged the stick against his fingers with the white ball in his sights. “You...you said that she came to you right after Danny died, and I remember this moment when we were on a long flight and...she asked me if I’d ever thought of telling Diane the truth about what we do. I didn’t think much of it, but the day after we got back she didn’t show for work. And when I found out from Sloane that some terrible accident had happened...I don’t know why I never connected that death with...her words on the plane.”

Michael missed completely, the black and white not even clacking together.

“Is there a question in there?” Vaughn knew this had been another piece that Sydney had planned on taking care of when her SD-6 take-down had ended. Now, it was his job.

“She told him; didn’t she?”

Vaughn nodded.

“And they killed him. Which is why she quit.” Dixon’s eyes bored into Vaughn’s, the game forgotten.

Michael nodded again.

“And he...he tried to kill her for it?”

Another nod.

“That’s why she got Sloane the Mueller Device. A way to get back into his good graces.”

Vaughn felt like his head was attached to a spring. It seemed Dixon didn’t have specific questions, it was more that he wanted confirmation of a timeline.

“After that, she started working with you? Here? That...that was 18 months ago. She...was double that whole time?”

Vaughn confirmed.

The older man’s eyes began to fill with tears. "If I’d known the truth,” Marcus started, a catch in his voice as he both did and didn’t know the answer before asking, “would she still be here today?”

Finally, something he couldn’t give a nod to, but also...he had no idea how to reply. “That’s...not something I know how to answer. It could have been both of you that were compromised, or worse: your family.”

“She was my family. And...if I wasn’t helping I was a hindrance. Just - just another thing for her to worry about. So I sat there,” he growled, his almost black eyes spilling tears and boring into the understanding green gaze. “I sat there and obeyed Sloane and...he killed her because I didn’t see past the lies.”

Vaughn wanted to speak but couldn't. What he did do was make a decision, one he’d wanted to make for a while despite the fact that it wasn’t his call. He gingerly placed the cue on the tabletop and turned to walk from the room. “Come with me," was all he said, but the look on his face and the resolved tone made Dixon toss his stick to the couch, making sure it didn’t clatter to the floor before following with quick steps. 

Wiping at the tears on his cheeks, Dixon was only a step behind as they got to the elevator. His eyes begged the younger agent to give him something, but Vaughn was broody and silent and the wrinkles on his forehead stood at attention in deep grooves.

“I’m sorry; I don’t mean to pile it all on you. I know you - you lost her too but I just,” Marcus sighed, “I need to know that part of her. She was such a huge part of my life for over seven years, but I didn’t know her at the end and I’ll regret that forever.”

The ride stopped and the panel dinged, a stark white hallway stretching out before them. It was empty, insofar as Dixon could tell, and he fell behind Vaughn as he walked the familiar route. Jamie sat at the desk with a book in her hands and her feet propped up on the second chair.

"He's not on the list," she protested with little to no authority in her voice, monotone in lack of seriousness, "no; stop; don't." The two shared a grin though she never looked up from her book, and Vaughn patted a confused Marcus on the shoulder. 

"Anyone in there?" 

The nurse shook her head looking up with kind eyes. "Weiss got called for a meeting, but Jack said he'd be down in about twenty minutes."

The confused agent followed to a side room, his eyes scanning for any sign of familiarity or reason that Vaughn would have brought him down here, and nothing immediately came into view.

As the door opened, the beeping of a heart monitor and the whooshing metronome of a breathing machine filled his ears. The minute his eyes focused on the prone, unconscious figure, everything became a watery blur.

"I couldn't lie to you again. Take your time and know that...she's as okay as she can be." Dixon barely heard the words as he slowly walked forward until his knees hit the end of the bed, the plastic edge biting into his shin as his shaking hand reached out and touched the lump of her foot underneath the blanket, a sob on his lips.

**…**

Five Weeks After Rescue

Francie’s tongue poked out from between her lips as she concentrated, the tiny, lidded brush pinched between her thumb and pointer finger spreading the pink paint over Sydney’s fingernails. With a broad smile, she sat back to admire her work as the door opened pulling her attention. A faint flicker of worry hit her as she stared at her best friend’s imposing father, but his eyes were kind and he gave her a grin as he entered.

“Thank you, Mister Bristow, for letting me come in here. I know there were some crazy rules, but...it means a lot.”

Jack nodded and sighed as he flopped in the chair on the opposite side of the bed after placing his customary kiss to Sydney’s forehead. “Of course. I’m sorry it took a month to get the clearance.”

The two lapsed into a comfortable silence, Jack peeking from the corner of his eye as he flipped through a folder of papers he'd brought with him.

“Mister Bristow?” Francie’s voice was timid but garnered the man’s full attention. Screwing the lid on the small bottle of polish, she set Sydney’s hand back down on the bed making sure the freshly done ends didn’t come into contact with the soft blanket.

“We’re past the mister phase, Francie. Call me Jack.”

“What happens next?”

It was a question the man honestly didn’t know how to answer. “The truth is, I have no idea what’s next. I’m just trying to work one day at a time.”

“Are Will and I ever going to be able to leave? Are you?” She was somewhat relieved by his smiling chuckle.

Closing the file, “of course, Francie. Once it’s safe, you’ll all get your lives back. The restaurant is still yours, and though you’re  _ away caring for  _ a  _ sick relative _ , the operative we put in charge is taking very good care of things for you.”

“How long have  _ you _ been trying to bring down those guys? When did you start this crazy double life?” Curiosity was eating at her, and if he was in a talkative mood, she figured she’d get all her questions out at once.

Jack’s smile turned sad as he broke eye contact and looked down at the ignored folder. Setting it on the table to his left he settled deeper into the comfortable sitting chair, his long legs sticking out. “You’ll have to forgive that I don’t know how much you’ve been told.”

“Not much, honestly, but I’m okay with that,” she admitted.

“Sydney’s mother was a Russian spy sent to steal government secrets and...when our daughter was six Laura faked her death. A year after that, Arvin Sloane quit the CIA, and six months later I was approached by the director about a new terrorist organization to research. My former friend and partner was in the middle of it all. Sloane had become disillusioned, and his joining this new organization hit me hard.”

To say that surprise was written across Francie’s features was an understatement. “Holy shit,” was all she could muster.

“Indeed,” Jack grinned. “Our lives, however complex, were necessary to hide from those around us. While painfully obvious now as to why secrets are paramount with this job,” he said gesturing to the prone woman between them, “Sydney was kept in the dark about the truth until just last year. I learned when Sydney was eight about the betrayal. For a little over a year, I was held in prison and interrogated as they thought me an accomplice, and Sydney was taken in by Sloane and Emily. I was released with a new mission: get close to Arvin and get an invitation to the new organization he was working with by whatever means necessary.”

“Wait, that was twenty years ago,” Francie said. “Are...do you think this could take  _ twenty years _ !?” 

Her exclamation made the father laugh. “We have more cards up our sleeve than they know. Before...this happened, Sydney went on an operation that compromised every facet of their organization, and we’ve been using that to set things in motion for a complete takedown.”

Francie looked to her comatose friend, impressed for what felt like the hundredth time that month at all she’d been doing while going to school, helping with the restaurant, and editing articles for Will.

“I hope she’s awake to see it, but I think it would also be nice to just wake up one day and have everything around you fixed.” 

The beeping of the machines was becoming comforting and Jack went back to reading his paperwork while Francie did touch-ups on Sydney’s fingernails.

“Let me ask you something,” Jack queried softly, Francie holding back her surprise behind a nod as she blew air on the fresh coat of paint. “What’s the first thing you’re going to say to her?”

They both knew that it could be  _ if she wakes _ , but left that out. The young woman flopped against the back of her seat with a contemplative look, her eyes focusing on nothing but looking straight ahead. 

Francie’s smile was infectious, “Hi.”

**…**

  
  



	20. Not Yet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [](https://www.flickr.com/photos/190971129@N06/50587408323/in/dateposted/)  
> 

“Go fish,” Will said tiredly, tossing the paper-filled folder into Weiss’ lap as the two sat sifting through information Sloane had handed over earlier that day. 

The entirety of the SD-6 arms-deals records sat in eight file-folder boxes, the two deciding to sift and sort through things in the lower medical room at the foot of Sydney's bed. The beeps and suctioning air provided sound to their otherwise silent activity, and in some way, they felt like she was still sticking it to the Alliance by simply being present.

In 42 days Arvin Sloane had obtained and made copies of an entire branch of Alliance activities. When coupled with the information they had pulled from the Luxumbourg server files, of which Sloane was kept purposefully in the dark, there was nearly an endless supply of information for analysis to validate and dispense.

Inside Sloane’s information was a handful of unnamed contacts through their arms sales and locations. Of a dozen wants on the massive Alliance bad guy list, they had only managed to ascertain two so far, one of which Vaughn was confirming in Hong Kong. His flight had left an hour ago, the private jet at Dover empty save for the single, tired passenger. 

“What did we do to deserve this?” Weiss grumbled as he cross-referenced the information in his hand with a cheat-sheet Will had created, dejectedly tossing in the pile to his left.

Will glared and pointed, “how are you sorting those files?”

“This,” Weiss announced with a gesture to his right, “is the I found a thing pile, while this,” gesturing to the larger pile on the left, “is the bullshit pile. This,” he pointed to the file, “is bullshit. It goes on the bullshit pile.”

The door opened and the young nurse came in, her left foot hitting one stack into another and scattering the two piles across the floor. “Damnit, you two,” she growled.

Weiss looked horrified as Will laughed, “what were _those_ piles?”

“Why have you taken up the entire floor with this? There are a dozen rooms upstairs with tables and chairs and no unconscious people that need to be checked every hour.”

“But Jamie, then we wouldn’t get to see you,” Eric grinned and winked, the young woman rolling her eyes despite the smile that tilted her lips. Bending down to help clean the mess she had inadvertently created, Weiss stood with a groan and watched helplessly as she stacked the files and papers, everything mixed to a point that he knew he’d have to sort it all over again.

It was hard to hear at first: the sudden rise in the tempo of the heart monitor. It was slight, but after spending a significant chunk of time each day over the last 42 days in this room, it made Will move closer to check the machine. What he didn’t expect to see were Sydney’s fluttering eyes desperately trying to open against the drugs in her system.

“Holy shit,” he whispered, the nurse snapping to attention. Piling the folders suddenly into Weiss’ open arms unbalanced him, the whole mess toppling to the floor in a scattered floof. He pushed it out of the way with his foot as the doctor flew in, his machines down the hall sounding with the sudden change in his patients’ status.

“I think she’s waking up,” Jamie said with a smile, moving to increase the flow of the IV liquids. 

They’d been marginally reducing her sedatives the last week and a half, the doctor pushing for her to wake up on her own over a few days after lowering the drugs. He didn't want to shock her system by killing everything all at once, but when those days passed and she hadn't shown even an inkling of waking, the fears of massive brain damage became very real.

 _What if she doesn't wake up_ was a question that everyone had been thinking daily, but none more frequent than the last ten days. This was the first hint of life from the young woman and the room was filled with nervous excitement tinged with fear. Each knew their worry was very legitimate.

The day she’d been extracted Sydney had lost just over three-quarters of the blood in her body and had been dead for at least three minutes before the team got into the room. Another thirty seconds or so passed getting her out of the chair and onto the floor before they could attempt resuscitation. The medical team had been blown away by the fact that they managed to get her heart pumping when there was hardly anything left to pump.

She crashed again when they got to the field office medical floor, all but one doctor ready to make the call. Two additional minutes with no rhythm passed as they inserted IV’s as close to the heart as possible to hit it with blood and adrenaline before doing more CPR that brought her back a second time. What ribs weren’t broken were cracked, but it was decided to repair it through several surgical procedures that covered the next three days. 

Once they achieved a semblance of stability the doctor had cautioned that Sydney had spent a total of five and a half minutes dead across a half an hour, and that it would be nearly impossible for them to tell what permanent damage, if any, had been done during that time. It was known that a person could come out relatively unscathed from more time spent without a heartbeat or air, but those people hadn't sustained six days of beatings, stabbings, and broken bones, all with nothing to eat or drink.

The spectrum was ‘she’ll never actually wake up’ to ‘brain damage, paralysis, memory loss’ and about six more things. To Will, it had sounded like one of those television ads for a medication and the list of side-effects that would make no one in their right mind _talk with their doctor_ about whatever the ad was peddling.

Her eyes fluttering open made each of them hold their breath because they would finally know which of those side-effects they had to deal with. The other caution, the one that made every person in that room keep their hands off the patient, had come from the psychologist. 

Will could hear her voice in his head: _‘Don’t touch her. You have no idea how she’ll react, and with the amount of damage she’s had and depending on the healing when she wakes up, anything you do could be painful and that will make her think she isn't in a safe place. Eyes only until she says otherwise._

“Agent Bristow? Blink if you can understand me." The few seconds they waited were long, the confused brown orbs trying hard to focus on the talking face above her.

She blinked. 

It was slow, but it was a blink.

**…**

“Agent Bristow, can you hear me?” The young woman stood over the groggy agent with a soft smile on her friendly face.

Sydney tried to talk, though nothing came out but a wheezing groan. The nurse stopped her by holding up her hand where she could see it, “it’s okay. After taking out the breathing tube your throat can be a bit raw. You can blink or nod if that’s easier.”

Sydney managed a weak nod.

“Great. My name is Jamie and I’ve been your nurse for a little while. I was just coming in to check your meds when I saw your eyes open.” 

Another nod as she smacked her lips together against the dryness of her mouth and tongue. The nurse disappeared and reappeared holding a sippy cup, bringing the small opening to Sydney’s lips. 

Taking a mouthful swallowing past the soreness of her throat, she croaked out: “thanks.”

“Whispering might work a bit better. I’m just going to check things over here, but I’m still here.” The nurse moved off, Sydney trying to turn her head to follow but the stiffness in her neck kept her looking up at the ceiling. She couldn’t really move anything at the moment, and with the last memories of what her body had been through, it made sense.

“Where?” she rasped.

“You’re in the JTF medical wing.” 

Sleep tugged at her, but she really wanted to figure something out before slipping away again.

“When?”

Jamie stopped, wishing anyone else would walk in and set her free. It was rare in the last 24 hours that Sydney was alone, the nurse finding the one moment where someone had run off.

"Uh, about a month and a half."

Sydney's mind reeled, her fuzzy brain trying to take stock in the facts. She wasn't dead, that was first. Second: she'd been rescued. The harder she tried to think the less her memory cooperated.

"Let me find someone for you. Your dad? Will?"

Sydney went to wave her off but only managed to lift her right hand a few inches before a heavy weakness and a stinging muscle spasm caused the limb to drop back to the padded bed.

"Please don't. I...I just...uh-" she stumbled over her words in a scratchy voice, Jamie halting her movement toward the door.

"O-okay. Are you in any pain?"

"I don't think so."

The nurse made her way back and checked the machine readouts. "I'll grab the doctor. Do you want to see the psychologist as well?"

Jamie saw the wheels behind Sydney's eyes turn, the slow blinks and rapid opening and closing of her lips not bringing forth any sound.

"I'll grab them both."

The nurse left and, for the first time, locked the door behind her. She spotted Will as he was heading back with a steaming hot coffee in one hand while flipping through something on his phone in the other. Snagging his arm he jumped, his phone clattering to the floor of the hallway as hot coffee splashed across his fingers.

His holler echoed as he glared daggers at the nurse, an apology leaving her lips as the now grumpy analyst bent down to retrieve his phone.

"Follow me," she ordered, the man falling into step as they made their way into the doctor's office at the end of the corridor.

"Agent Bristow is awake."

Will had a burst of excitement flutter up from his stomach.

"Fully conscious? Coherent?" Doc Greene rose from his desk pulling off his glasses and sliding them to the top of his head.

"Yep. But...she seems to not want any visitors. She did agree to see you and Doctor Curtis."

Will's jumped in. "What do you mean she doesn't want visitors?"

The medical team looked at the young man with sympathetic eyes, the doctor setting a hand to his shoulder. "It's fairly common, Will. Coma patients go through a lot when they wake up, even after a short period of time. Add that to her potential last memories and it makes a lot of sense. We'll make sure she's oriented and let her tell us what she needs. What she says goes, even if it means staying away for a little while."

Though it felt like a punch in the heart, Will agreed. He was left in the hallway, deciding to make his first stop Weiss rather than Jack and Francie.

**…**

"You tell me if you need to stop for any reason. If you get tired or are in pain, or plain get sick of me, we stop." Her voice was soothing, the agent almost completely immobile on the bed and staring up at the ceiling. The lights above were off and a lamp across the room illuminated things well enough for the psychologist to take notes but not to aggravate Sydney's sensitive eyes.

The woman had introduced herself as Sarah Curtis, and once Doctor Green was satisfied that his patient was well enough to speak with her, the two were left in the room.

Sydney wasn't very excited to bring another shrink up to speed. On a one to ten scale of having a crazy life with the lower being normal, Sydney’s had to rank at least a 20, and the most recent parts she assumed the lady wanted to poke at were painfully unfuzzy.

 _'Unless she watched everything.'_ Her mind kicked out that small factoid, reminding her again that Flynn had broadcast every moment of what she'd been through on the internet. The odds were good that the woman sitting quietly beside her bed knew everything, just like everyone else. That fact made her heart hurt. Her life was no longer secret, and she didn’t know how she’d get used to that fact.

"I...don’t know where to start." Sydney's voice was somewhere between a smoker's whisper and a harsh rasp, and her throat felt raw from staying silent for so long as well as the removal of the breathing tube.

Sarah smiled softly. "I'm colleagues with Judy Barnett. I have your file at home and have read up on everything, so don't worry about needing to bring me up to speed."

_'In my head already? She's good.'_

Sydney visibly relaxed at this information.

"I've spent my career working with the military, mostly prisoners of war, and your director thought that my talents would be helpful to you, and I agree. Judy was kept in the dark on this, as were all but a select few, so whatever you tell me doesn’t leave this room. I promise. Do you mind if I ask you something, Agent Bristow?"

"Sydney. Just...just call me Sydney." 

Sarah nodded, though her patient kept her eyes trained on the ceiling and couldn't see the movement. Sarah wasn't sure if it was because Sydney was in an avoiding mood or if she wasn't able to turn her head, but it didn't really matter. 

"What's the last thing you remember?"

Sydney swallowed past the lump bubbling up in her throat, "I remember everything.”

“Okay, what the last thing you thought about before...before the camera turned off.”

The young woman closed her eyes tight as if that would help jog her memory of the rescue, but it came back blank. “I remember messing with him, trying to get him to lose it one last time.”

“Why?”

She tried for a shrug, a pinch of pain in her left shoulder making its way through the medication and causing a wince. “Because it was all I had. Making that guy...lose his mind in frustration was all I had.”

“Do you remember being stabbed?”

Sydney let out a dark chuckle, “which time?”

Sarah grinned, “good point.”

“Yeah.”

They lapsed into a moment of silence. 

“I guess I - I don’t remember _everything_. I...I don't...I don't remember the rescue."

Sarah knew she was treading on thin ice. The reason the young woman didn't recall her extraction was because she was dead at the time. She wrestled with herself on whether or not this was too soon to relay this information. Deciding to steer the conversation away from the extraction, she continued.

"It's okay if you don't recall everything, I was just wondering what you remembered last. Do you have any memory of waking here a few hours ago?"

Sydney minutely shook her head, her eyes still focusing above her. "Doctor Curtis?"

"Call me Sarah."

"Did you see...everything, Sarah?"

The woman shook her head. "Not live, but I saw plenty on the news. When they asked if I would take you as a patient, and after I agreed, I watched the footage."

They lapsed into silence, Sarah thinking that she had dozed off, but leaning forward she saw the rapidly moving and blinking brown eyes filled with tears.

"Tell me what you're thinking right now," she prodded.

The agent sighed, making Sarah grin. "Look, I've worked with military guys that could bench press a truck, tough as nails and fed from the day they were born to not let any feelings in because tough didn't do that kind of thing. With me, you don't have to be tough. It's going to come out one way or another, you might as well let it out with me instead of holding on and letting it eat you from the inside out."

Sydney thought for another minute. "I can't really move anything."

"That would be both the drugs and the fact that you haven't so much as wiggled a toe in over forty days. But, you know that with physical therapy and training you'll be back to yourself in a few months."

Sydney sniffled, "is that possible?"

Sarah frowned a bit. "Is what possible?"

"To get back to myself? Because I...I feel really far away." Her voice turned watery.

"Mind or body far away?"

"Both? I don't know," she rasped, Sarah taking a moment to bring the cup to Sydney's lips to let her drink.

"Why can't I remember the extraction? Why do I have to remember everything but the good part?" A tear slipped from the corner of her eye and rolled down her temple.

Sarah drew a deep breath and set the cup on the table beside the chair before moving back into Sydney’s eye line, the worried brown orbs meeting her comforting and gentle blue stare.

"How honest do you want me to be right now? If you think you can handle details you _don't_ remember, I'll tell you what parts you're missing. But, I want you to really think. Are you ready to know? Because we have plenty of time and you don't have to do everything all at once."

Sydney thought as hard as she could, but as exhaustion pulled at the edges of her vision thinking was becoming too hard. Sarah was surprised when she shook her head and whispered, "not yet."

"Deal. But know that I'll always be honest with you. All I ask is that you're honest with me."

Sydney passed her a genuine smile. "Is it normal that I don't wanna see anyone? Even...people that I love?"

"Totally normal. Want me to check back a little later? Or have your doc call when you wake up again?"

"Whatever happens first, I guess. Thanks, Sarah."

Lifting her things the psychologist made her way to the door. Turning before exiting, she asked, "if there was one person you wanted to see right now, who would it be?"

**…**


	21. Completely Honest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [](https://www.flickr.com/photos/190971129@N06/50592717341/in/dateposted/)  
> 

“No,” Kendall growled as he pushed open the door to his office with Jack on his heels despite not receiving an invitation.

“Sydney’s been awake for _seven days_ , and this is the only thing she’s asked for. She’s the only person Sydney wants to see.”

“And why is that?”

Jack’s arms fell to his sides. “The psychologist agrees that it will be good for her. Irina has interrogation experience while also having the benefit of not seeing any footage of Sydney’s...ordeal.”

“We can’t keep pulling an international terrorist out of prison, Jack.”

“ **Steve** ,” the father pleaded, the eyebrows of the director shooting up at the use of his first name. “It’s been a week and she’s refused to see anyone. I want to say that this is for her and it...it is, but...some of us desperately need this.”

Kendall sighed and tightly closed his eyes, the crinkles on his temples deep and grooved. “Extra security Jack, and you’re escorting to and from the cell. There’s one way in and out, and I want three guys on it the whole time with one in the room. No exception.”

A genuine smile hit the agent’s face as he nodded and left, almost skipping with a hurried step down to the security floor. His stomach was flip-flopping and he wondered when he’d last felt this excited, especially when going down to see his ex-wife. The questions were still circling in his mind as the gates lifted, but he realized all too late that he would be passing by the third cell down the row in order to access the fourth where Irina was being held. 

It was clear that neither Jack nor Kendall had thought of that, the standing order that the elder Bristow wasn’t allowed to interact in any way with “Mister Flynn”. The three escorting guards faltered when he stopped in front of the glass window mid-stride at the realization that he was staring straight at his daughter’s “killer”. That tamped down the flame of his excitement.

Gerald Davis sat on the metal cot with his forearms resting on his knees and hands clasped lightly, the same pose he took so many times in that room with Sydney. The father didn’t realize he was unmoving until the man’s voice yanked him back to the present.

“Jack Bristow. Here to fulfill your daughter’s threats?”

His heartbeat pounded in his ears as the nasally British accent wafted around him, muffled from behind the glass. A hand on his shoulder reminded Jack that he was there for other reasons, and without answering he turned to walk through the last open gate. 

“You and Sydney share a penchant for playing the silent game. Well...shared,” the cocky man said loudly.

He found himself gritting his teeth against the desire to have the guard open the door so he could pull the still-beating heart from fake Mister Flynn's chest, though it began to dissipate as he stepped up to the glass between him and Irina Derevko. She sat on the floor perched atop a pillow with a book in her hand, a genuinely happy smile passing her lips when spotting him with his entourage.

“The request has been approved,” Jack said mechanically, and anyone else would have thought it to be business as usual with the stoic man.

Irina could hear the small amount of excitement in his voice, however, and rose with a stretch. The door beeped and unlocked, the captive woman moving to set her book with the others on the small shelf. Turning to face the wall away from the door she clasped her hands behind her back waiting for the jingling cuffs to be attached.

“When we leave,” Jack started, “don’t look into the next cell. There may come a day where I let you out to kill him, but this isn’t that day. I’m asking Kendall to move you to a closer cell so we don’t have to see the jackass every time we meet with you.”

Irina comprehended the deep hatred behind his words but knew that Jack felt it harder as he’d watched every moment of what that man had done to their daughter. After the time expired, Jack appeared in front of her cell in rumpled attire with tears streaming down his cheeks, and her heart had sunk into her stomach. While his news had been happy, it also had been cloaked by a shadow of the unknown. 

That was the last time she’d seen him. Irina had requested that Vaughn meet with her in lieu of the Bristow’s as the father wasn’t allowed to access the hallway until the director thought he could handle Flynn's taunts, and Sydney was in unconscious traction somewhere in the building. 

As the group passed the killers’ cell, Irina kept her eyes high and forward as Jack had suggested, though the temptation to give her patented dagger-like glare at the man was hard to suppress. The elevator felt crowded, though she didn't mind. Whatever human contact she got these days was like a balm, that not something she was willing to admit out loud.

To Jack, the white door of Sydney’s medical room loomed while to Irina, it looked like an escape. The shackles were removed as two guards took up positions to the right and left sides of the frame. The third was at least a foot taller than her and she had to tilt her head to look into the nearly black eyes, “I’ll be watching through the glass.”

“I thought you were to accompany me inside?” The lilting accent wafted up to the giant.

“She’s earned more respect than that,” he said quietly and stepped back once her hands were free of the confining metal rings.

Jack sent her a look of both reassurance and desperation, and she felt his need, hurt, jealousy, scorn, and hope in that one glance. Her hand on the knob, it opened quietly. The smell of sterile cleaner hit her nose as beeping devices echoed in the otherwise silent room. Sydney was tilted slightly at an angle with her eyes closed and an oxygen tube hugging her slimmed face. A couple of small scars discolored her cheek, right eyebrow, and the left corner of her lower lip, but other than having lost a bit of weight and a tinge of paleness to her skin everything looked exactly the same as she’d last seen her.

Her quick eyes scanned deeper as she moved to the bedside. Jack had given her a list of injuries a week after Sydney’s rescue, so Irina wasn’t coming in with a complete lack of knowledge of her child’s mistreatment, but hearing a list of injuries wasn’t the same as watching them be administered.

Surgical scars ran the lengths of the fingers on her left hand, and in a long white line, another flanked with dots followed the radius length of her forearm. Irina reached out and pulled her daughter’s hand lightly between hers. She didn’t expect the sudden jolt from the young woman, the warm fingers yanked from her palm as Sydney woke with panicked eyes.

"Shh, sweetheart, it’s alright.” Transported back to when her daughter had been struck with a high fever flu at five years old, the soothing voice came back instantly even though it was something Irina hadn’t used in almost thirty years.

The quickly beeping monitors settled down over a few moments as did Sydney’s breathing. 

"I wasn't sure if they would give clearance." Her voice was rough from lack of use and she cleared her throat.

“Of all the people in the world-” Irina left off hoping her daughter would fill in the blanks, but she just blinked the sleep from her eyes and stayed quiet.

What the estranged mother took as avoidance Sydney was using to put her words in coherent order to keep from rambling and venting.

“You don’t have a t.v. in your cell. You’re...the only person that didn’t see everything - the…” she sighed tiredly, “the one person that-”

Her mother chuckled, “- has no pity. I know the feeling.” With an exhale, Irina settled into the chair next to the bed and crossed one leg over the other as her eyes studied the twisting fingers in her lap.

"Sydney, if you close yourself off to the people that love you you'll never completely heal. I know what it's like to be broken."

Sydney frowned and looked down at the lump her feet created under the scratchy hospital blanket. "I didn't break. I...didn’t give him anything."

Irina scoffed with a small huff, and Sydney whipped flashing eyes on her mother but settled when she saw the gentle smile and identical eyes filled with understanding, love, and a lack of judgment.

"You didn't give them any intelligence, but you were broken. That doesn't mean that you weren't - aren't - strong."

"How did you do it? How did you come back?"

Irina thought for a moment, now knowing that Sydney had asked to see her for advice on clawing back from what she’d been through.

“Part of you won’t come back. A piece will always live in the back of your mind, and that’s something you’ll have to accept.”

That was something the young woman hadn’t wanted to hear, her mother noting the look of pain on Sydney's face.

“How much have they told you?” Irina asked.

The brown eyes dropped again and Irina saw the renewed slump in her daughter’s shoulders. The mother nodded with a sigh. “That...may be the part that’s hardest. That...I can't help you with.”

“What if…” Sydney started but stopped.

“Keep going. Don’t stop yourself, sweetheart.”

“When...when you’re ready to go, and you decide that you’re done and then when that doesn’t happen,” she swallowed past the lump in her throat before looking up as a teardrop rolled down her thin cheek. “Why did he have to find me? Why do I have to live with what happened? I shouldn't _be_ here any longer, mom. I...don't need to be here.”

Her voice wavered and she sucked in a shuddering breath, the mother breaking along with her. Reaching slowly and gently, Irina wrapped her arms around and pulled her daughter against her chest. Minutes ticked by as Sydney finally let herself be held by someone for the first time since everything, and she used those minutes to raggedly sob into her mother’s neck. She had tried but failed to lift her limbs and return the embrace, Irina whispering soft reassurances in mixed English and Russian against Sydney’s ear.

Pulling back and cupping the wet cheeks, the mother pressed a kiss to the daughter’s warm forehead before tilting the sniffling face up. "You are so loved, sweetheart. The world is better because you're _still here_."

Bringing her close into another hug, Irina didn't let go until Sydney's body relaxed and gave in to the affection.

“Tell me what things were like before they took you.” her mother's voice was low but still loud as Sydney's head rested with her ear against her heart.

“What do you mean?”

Irina smiled and pulled back a bit as she felt Sydney’s muscles tremble at the exertion of staying upright. “Tell me about your life.”

"You know what it was like. I met with you a week before I went to London."

Irina laughed and cupped her daughter’s cheeks, the pads of her thumbs wiping at the tears. "Sweetheart, you never _talked_ to me. I only know about your life from inflections in the words you used."

Sydney sniffled and shrugged with her right shoulder. “Everything was...okay.” Pulling her face free, Sydney looked at her lap with eyes full of longing and regret.

“Just okay?” Irina let her move but continued to hold her hand and maintain some form of contact even if Sydney wasn’t interested.

“Parts of it were really great but...some things were really hard.”

“Tell me about it. All of it.”

An hour ticked by and she shared more than she had even to the psychologist in the last week. Sydney got it all out. Every bit of truth about SD-6 and what they learned in Luxembourg, Sloane’s betrayal, Dixon’s doubts, her father, and even the start of her relationship with Vaughn.

“When you walked into that room in Taipei...it crushed me. Even before that, learning everything about you...the truth...the way I did - it was,” Sydney met Irina’s eyes, no longer afraid to speak truths to those that may not want to listen, “heartbreaking. And I still carry that. Everything that you’ve done against this agency - this...country...I’ve had to carry. Being in love with the son of one of the agents you killed - that truth is there every time I’m with him.”

The admission seemed to affect her mother more than expected, and the hurt look that passed across those brown eyes revealed more secrets than Sydney had kept her whole life. Mother and daughter lapsed into silence for several moments as each thought of what to say next.

“I’ll be completely honest with you if you’d like, Sydney. Do you want that?”

“Seriously?”

Irina smiled, “you’ve earned every bit of truth I have.” 

For the first time in a long time, Sydney held all the power, and it was a strange but good feeling. 

_'Do you really want to know all of your mother’s secrets?’_ The Bristow brain voice had been absent since the last moments she’d spent in that room.

 **_'Died_ ** _. Since you_ **_died_ ** _in that room.’_

She wasn’t exactly thrilled that it had returned.

At the tiny nod, Irina began. “I told you briefly about being held in India but that - that wasn’t my first internment, nor was it the worst. My own government put me in a cell and interrogated me for six months.” Sliding the chair closer to the bed, Irina settled down with a resigned sigh and wrung her fingers in her lap nervously.

Finally looking up she saw her daughter’s studious brown eyes, Sydney asking, “why?”

Tears filled Irina’s eyes taking Sydney off guard, “because I didn’t kill Bill Vaughn.”

The silence hurt, and for the first time in days, Sydney couldn’t hear the beeping of the machines through the roar of blood that rushed to her ears. The honesty sucked the air out of the room, and she couldn’t stop her mother's words from bouncing around in her head over and over again.

Irina continued, “one thing I never explained to you, or...Jack, was that my leaving wasn’t the plan. My assignment was meant to be deep and long-lasting. Which,” she sighed, “was only bearable because I fell in love with my family. Sydney...in the beginning, I was so naively loyal that when they gave an order, I obeyed. They taught me about Rambaldi and that...my child would be part of his prophecies, and I fell for the magic in those words.”

More tears fell from Irina’s eyes as she looked wistfully at the far white wall, Sydney focusing on her mother’s face. “That’s why you had me?” She couldn’t keep the creeping whimper out of her voice, and the heartache was compounded by the mother’s nod. The two fell into silence, neither knowing who needed the break more.

Irina knew exactly why her daughter was pushing people away and what it would take for Sydney to regain her sense of self. She needed control over something - anything - and Irina was the one person that could give her that. It would cost some of her biggest secrets, but the mother thought it was a worthy cause, all things considered.

“Make me understand,” Sydney demanded after a few minutes ticked by, her curiosity gagging her desire to be alone.

Those familiar words pierced Irina’s heart, and she swallowed before continuing. “The more my division gained interest in Rambaldi, the more I realized that they would one day harm you, or ask me to. I began to lose faith in my government, Sydney.” Standing, the suddenly nervous Russian moved back to her daughter’s bedside and rested her arms atop the railing surrounding the sides of the medical bed.

“My target was a man in charge of two special operations codenamed A. FINCH, and I would find him in Cuba. My instructions were to leave nothing but dental records. I wasn’t given any other information.”

Irina pulled her daughter’s hand between her own, Sydney realizing that this time it was her mother that needed comfort. Though it was beginning to recede, her brain still triggered her muscles when someone touched her skin, and the phantom familiar burn licked her nerves for a fraction of a second before being chased away by reality. This was a lot, and definitely wasn’t what she thought their conversation would cover.

“His team was...easy to find. The assignment was covert surveillance, so he was easy to track as they never left their hotel in Havana. His partner left to get food one night and I went in. It wasn’t until my knife was at his throat that he knew I was there, but - those green eyes - they looked into my soul and stopped me dead in my tracks.”

_"Russia sends its regards, A. Finch,” her harsh words squeezed between her clenched teeth. She caught the man as he spun around in surprise, his back crashing atop the desk as she brought her knife to his neck._

_"Laura?”_

_Her normally steady hands gained a tremble and her eyes went wide, the sharp knife edge biting the skin of the man’s neck and letting loose a pearl of blood. Despite the adrenalin driving her muscle memory, she froze._

_"Bill?”_

_"You’re...you have a knife to my throat. In...in Cuba.” Hurt flashed across his eyes as his expression changed from panic to surprise to worry to recognition before landing on betrayal. “You...you-” he stuttered, unable to find the words._

_Her body acted before her mind and she stepped back to allow him to stand back up._

_"What the hell are you doing here?”_

_"Bill...I-”_

_"What...the_ **_hell_ ** _...are you_ **_doing here_ ** _?” His words were punctuated by the gun he now pointed in her direction._

_Irina lifted her hands level with her head, the knife still held between her thumb and palm. The two locked eyes as seconds ticked by, and for each, it felt like an eternity. Questions they asked in their minds were abundant, yet their throats didn’t know how to put it into order. He found his words first, however._

_"You’re KGB.”_

_"Bill...I-”_

_"You...does Jack know?”_

_The tight ponytail bounced back and forth as she vehemently shook her head. “No. He…”_

_"You’re KGB?” He repeated, this time as a question, and his heart sunk at the glistening tears filling her suddenly scared brown eyes._

_"Bill please, you don’t understand.”_

_"_ **_Make me understand_ ** _,” he demanded, his piercing green stare as steady as the gun in his hands._

_"I’m sorry.” It was all she could think to say._

_"You’re sorry? For what? For the fact that you were sent by Russia to kill someone and it happened to be me or for betraying your friends and family?”_

_Her sigh was watery. “Just...I’ll just leave.”_

_Bill let out a harsh chuckle and dropped his hands to his sides as sadness slumped his shoulders. “Laura…?”_

_"You can just let me go, Bill.”_

_He wasn’t prepared for that, and the harsh laugh that left his throat was entangled with the sorrow written on his face. “This is going to crush him, Laura.”_

_A frown creased her forehead, “_ **_Jack_ ** _can_ **_never_ ** _know.”_

 _He continued as if she hadn’t spoken, “and Sydney. What...what was your plan? Just...kill me and go home to your family? What about_ **_my_ ** _family, Laura?”_

_She didn’t have an answer for that one. Obviously, she hadn’t planned on killing a friend today, and though she had been prepared for every scenario, this one hadn’t even crossed her mind._

_Bill kept pressing. “What about Michael? You...you babysat him when he was little.”_

_"Stop,” she ordered, her eyes filling with tears. “I’m...not going to kill you, Bill.”_

_"But if I_ **_wasn’t_ ** _who I am - you would have killed me?”_

 _"Yes,” she growled. “Because my country ordered me to. Much like you’re here to find an enemy of the state, and later your country will kill_ **_them_ ** _. Don’t play the angel card with me, Bill - I know this mission, I just didn’t-”_

_"-know it was my mission?”_

_His normally friendly green eyes turned a dark stormy emerald, and he retrained the gun on the woman across from him. He had a hard decision to make, though it was becoming clearer the more he thought through the consequences. Sure, he’d always been a company man, but her words rang true in his mind. He_ **_knew_ ** _this mission would result in the death of the man he was surveilling. Carlos Santiago was a drug kingpin, and Bill was aware of that. He was also aware of the fact that the surveillance intelligence he was supposed to gather was going to lead to the man’s death, and that did not sit well with him. Still, he pushed it down and boarded the plane to Cuba._

_Bill was now sure of two things. First, Carlos had friends in Russia. It was probably where Brezhnev got the cocaine for his parties at the Kremlin, and because Bill was the lead on this mission, he’d become a target. Second, he didn’t want to die and he knew she no longer wanted to kill him. He closed his eyes for a moment and sighed as thoughts raced through his head._

_"Bill...are you going to let me go?”_

_Could he just let her go?_

_Probably not. The company line was digging at him - ‘for god and country’ - and even though he knew the Bristows', he knew what was at stake if he kept his silence._

_"Bill,” she pleaded._

_Her nervous voice pulled him from his thoughts and he refocused his green stare on her tear-filled brown eyes. “I don’t know. I...don’t think I can,” he admitted, the gun still aimed._

_"I’m not going to kill you,” she said softly, hearing voices on the other side of the door. “But you need to tell me now. Think...think of Jack and Sydney.”_

_Bill scoffed, his mouth opening to retort as the window behind him shattered. She jumped and a startled sound squeaked from her throat as something wet and sticky splashed across her eyes forcing them closed in reaction. She held still and reopened, her ears only dimly hearing two suppressed gunshots just outside the room._

_A heavy boot hit the particle-board door to the shoddy hotel room, but her shocked and now blood-splattered pale face couldn’t look away from the surprised green eyes of the man that had been her friend. He fell to his knees and brought a hand up to absently touch the gaping exit wound in the center of his chest. She fought the rough hands that grabbed her from behind as tears blurred her vision, though not enough to keep from seeing Bill Vaughn’s eyes roll back as he fell face down on the shaggy yellow carpet that was now turning orange underneath his body._

“I’d never felt more like the betrayer than that night,” Irina said softly, both mother and daughter wiping at their cheeks. “We lived in Virginia for the first year of your life, and Bill, Jack, and Arvin not only worked closely together, but they were genuine friends.”

“Dad never mentioned that he knew Bill Vaughn.” Sydney was still trying to come down from the shock of the initial revelation, now accompanied by detail, but genuine surprise filled her at the revelation of the Bristow’s and Vaughn’s being old family friends. 

“Did...did you kill those _other_ agents?”

Irina nodded, “yes. That was blind loyalty. At the time, I...I was serving my country. I didn’t question my duties any more than you did when working for SD-6. Truth takes time, darling, you and I both have been victims of that fact.”

Sydney was still trying to wrap her brain around everything her mother was telling her.

“I was taken back to Russia for interrogation. The excuse was that my sister was in a terrible accident and I needed to be there to help her - and Jack was, of course, supportive. They held me for four months and...the things they did, Sydney,” Irina paused with a quiver to her chin, “made me lose the rest of the faith I’d put in my agency.”

Sydney's eyes darkened and she broke from her mother's gaze to look at the blanket across her lap. She was beginning to feel exhausted, this being the longest she'd stayed awake in one stint this week.

"My sister Katya got me out but...damage was done. I still wake up some nights in a cold sweat and I still flinch when a man touches me if I'm not expecting their hand. It's...part of it will always be there. It won't all go away. I closed myself off for years afterward, and I can say that...that was the wrong way to handle things."

"I'm sorry, mom," Sydney whispered.

“Don’t let yourself be consumed by it, sweetheart. The people that love you want so much to heal you, and you should let them. Not all of it will work, Sydney. Be ready for failures, and setbacks, and a lot of hard work, but you don’t have to do it alone.”

A tear rolled down Sydney’s cheek. “I don’t have any secrets left, mom. Everyone but you knows everything and...that’s all they’re going to see.”

“They don’t know everything. The camera turned off and there were _hours_ only you experienced. It’ll be up to you to share those details or not, but...don’t hold it in from everyone. Tell those you feel it would be necessary to tell, but no more. Did...when you weren’t being filmed, did he-”

Irina had never thought it would be so hard to ask a single question. Relief flooded her soul when her daughter gave a negative shake of her head, “no, he...but he threatened it a lot and...it doesn’t mean he didn’t touch me. I’m thankful for that, at least.”

They lapsed into silence. “I don’t know what to say to anyone,” Sydney mumbled.

“Let them do the talking. Don’t shy away from honesty.” At her daughters ‘are you serious’ eye-narrowed glare, “I know, I know. Do as I say and not as I do.”

Sydney thought for a moment. “Can...can I tell Vaughn the truth? About his dad?” 

Irina passed a genuine smile to her daughter, leaned in, and kissed her on the forehead. “It was something I should have told you both a long time ago, and I’m sorry I didn’t.” Sydney’s eyes began to droop. “Okay, that’s enough for now.”

The young woman protested, Irina seeing for the first time the fact that Sydney was fighting to stay awake.

“No, I’m not...please don’t go yet.”

“Sweetheart, you need rest,” the mother started, unprepared by the panic on her daughter’s face.

“They’ll never let you back out and...I have no idea when I’ll be able to see you again. Mom,” she said harshly. “You’re the _only one_ that can help me right now.”

Irina smiled sweetly, leaning in to press a kiss to Sydney’s forehead, “they’ll let me come back in, Sydney.”

Again, the mother was taken back to the time she spent as Laura Bristow and the frustrating moments it took to get Sydney in bed and asleep as a child.

“But...I’m not tired.” That garnered a laugh from the Russian that was quickly followed by an eye roll. 

“Yes, you are.”

“Mom-”

“You need to see your father. If anything...you need to do it for _him_ as much as for yourself, sweetheart.” Tucking the blankets around the fatigued shoulders, Irina tugged her fingers from the weak grip and turned toward the door.

“All he’s going to see is me broken. How can I make him see anything else?” Sydney’s voice was a strangled sob, and Irina had a hard time not turning back and pulling her against her chest until the guards broke in and forced her back to her cell.

“Right now, Sydney - right now you _are_ broken. You are _his_ broken daughter. You have to admit that before you can start to be fixed.” 

The tears that spilled from the wounded brown eyes punched the mother in the chest, but she still made her way to the door and knocked twice. It opened slowly and she stepped out without a backward glance.

**…**

  
  



	22. Hi

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [](https://www.flickr.com/photos/190971129@N06/50592764181/in/dateposted/)

The pulsing bass from the speakers was an endless vibration even through the cement of the sidewalk, and Vaughn wondered again why all bad guys in their late forties to mid-fifties always coordinated meetings in sweaty packed nightclubs.

His hair was slightly gelled into a ‘straight out of bed’ look, and the charcoal-colored satin suit jacket and pants made the crisp white undershirt pop even in the low overhead light of the Lexus. He adjusted his cuffs making the platinum links glint as the driver pulled up to the curb and hopped out to jog around the vehicle and open the back passenger door.

Stepping out to flashing lights and a line of dressed-to-kill attendees, he made sure the hosts at the door saw him remove a $100 bill and extend it to the driver. Lifting his wrist and checking the time on the insanely expensive Rolex that felt clunky on his wrist compared to the one he usually wore, he bypassed the line of guests and headed straight for the door.

Tilting his lips into a slight smile he pierced the blue eyes of the hostess with his emerald gaze and spotted her eyes drop to give him a once-over. Styled but disheveled sandy hair down to the white, open collar exposing a few inches of his chest before closed by a silvery button that tapered until hidden by the blazer that hugged his trim waist. She spotted the watch and the cuff links, a smarmy smile crinkling the corners of her over-made eyes. 

“Are you on this list, sir?” She asked, her voice a soft yell if that were possible.

His finger beckoned her to come closer, his lips brushing the edge of her ear as he spoke in a gravelly tone. “Peux-tu faire une exception, ma chérie?” (Could you make an exception, darling?)

She rocked back and spoke to the gigantic bouncer that leaned forward, and a moment later his meaty hands opened the velvet rope blocking the doorway between two metal stanchions granting Vaughn entry. Pecking a kiss to her cheek he slipped another hundred between her fingers, “merci, mon amour.” (Thank you, love.)

The music was even louder inside and the tempo shot through the expensive shoes into his legs and up to his teeth as they rattled in time behind his tongue. First on his list was a drink, so he fought through the sea of bodies to get to the bar to the right of the dance floor. Managing to order, he looked around as the expensive brandy swirled across his tongue. Trained eyes scanned the outskirts of the club and spotted the VIP rooms, his target the third on the right down the line. Finishing the delicious liquid he had another poured before fisting the glass and pushing his way through the dancing, clustered, and yelling crowd toward the other end of the club.

A bouncer stepped up and blocked his path, and Vaughn responded with a cool smirk, and reached into his jacket to extract a folded piece of expensive and embossed cardstock. At the flashing of the paper, the man nodded in agreeance and stepped aside, Michael continuing to the open door of VIP room seven.

The walls were painted a deep red and swirls of gold filigree spun in paisley patterns on all four sides. A small, oval, glass coffee table sat in the center of a c-shaped gold velvet couch, a bucket half-filled with ice and two bottles of pricey-looking champagne nestled inside.

“Ah, you must be Mister Vaughn,” a Spanish voice said loudly, and Michael turned to see his contact standing with a glass of white wine and talking with a tall guard. The bouncer nodded and left, the curtain closing behind him and leaving the two men inside to talk alone.

“Mister Veloso?”

“Si, si,” the man said behind a slimy smile and swept his arm in an arc for him to join him on the sofa. “Can I interest you in some very expensive champagne, Mister Vaughn?”

“I’m interested in the information if you don’t mind.”

The Spaniard scoffed, “take time to enjoy the little things, amigo. Does the CIA not allow you to have any fun?”

Stifling an eye-roll knowing that he had to make the man feel like he was in control, Michael finished the brandy in one gulp and set the Steuben glassware on the table. He leaned back and crossed one leg over the other with the ankle resting on his knee before tossing one arm along the back of the soft cushion. “By all means,” he acquiesced, his hand gesturing toward the unopened bottles. 

Though he knew it was coming, the popping of the cork still made his stomach jump, and two fluted glasses were nearly overflowing with the bubbly drink before one was offered with an outstretched arm. It felt like he was being sold something by a scummy used car salesman, but Vaughn took the drink anyway and brought it to his lips. 

It was good champagne, he had to give him that. “You contacted us, Mister Veloso. I’m listening.”

Ramon Veloso was the former leader of SD-12, though all of the intelligence gathered in Luxembourg had him pegged as the still-serving director. Someone new had been approved and put into place, Ramon skipping away from the Alliance of Twelve with a large money settlement, protection from the other directors, and a replacement he helped train from a very short list. Vaughn was there to get that name.

“I first have a question, Mister Vaughn,” Veloso chided as he mimicked the casual position across from the agent.

“What’s that?”

“You work in the Los Angeles branch, tú no?” (...do you not?)

A frown caused wrinkle lines to appear across his forehead. “Why do you ask?”

“There was just an unfortunately public amount of business that was conducted by the Alliance with that CIA agent from the Los Angeles branch, that’s all.” Ramon saw the warning flicker in the green eyes.

“If you don’t mind, I’ll take that information now,” Vaughn growled, his decorum slipping quickly away. 

“Did you know her?”

Michael sighed as the muscles between his temple and cheekbones flexed with the effort to not say something that could compromise his whole reason for being there. “There’s a lot of people in that office, Mister Veloso.”

“Ah, but there was only one Sydney Bristow, no estaba ahi? Why do you think I got out from under the Alliance’s thumb? Ellos son maniacos,” the man growled downing the rest of his champagne in a single gulp. (was there not?) (they’re maniacs).

“I have no doubt. Who is the Director of SD-12, Ramon?”

The Spaniard chuckled and wagged his finger. “Give me something, hermano. We’re trading here; so you give  _ me  _ some information, and I’ll give  _ you _ some information.”

“I’m trading you forty-million dollars, I don’t have to tell you anything.”

Veloso lifted his hands, “okay, okay, I get it. It’s a sensitive subject. No one likes to see a colleague tortured over six days and murdered on live t.v.,” he grumbled. “I was just asking if you knew her, that’s all. She...seemed worth knowing,” he grinned wiggling his eyebrows.

Jack’s voice boomed in his head:  _ get the intelligence  _ **_before_ ** _ you do anything.’ _

“SD-12? Before I decide that you don’t  _ need _ forty million,” Vaughn threatened.

Pouring another glass of champagne and topping off the one that Vaughn had set roughly back onto the table, Ramon sat back and again crossed one leg over the other. “When I notified the Alliance that I wished to hand the mantle of SD-12 to another and retire, I made several agreements, paid a lot of money, and signed what felt like a thousand documents. So, perdóname if I don’t just give everything to you right away. For all I know, you aren’t CIA at all and there will soon be a knife in my back, lo entiendes?” (pardon me) (do you get it?)

Michael rolled his eyes and placed both feet back on the floor before leaning forward and putting his elbows on his knees. “Fine. I’ll play along.”

“¡Fantástico!” Offering the cup in cheers, his brown eyes expected the agent to follow along.

“Yeah, I knew Agent Bristow. She was occasionally in the field office, though I didn’t see her much.” He hoped his lies were convincing enough for the man to roll over and give up the intel.

Ramon squinted his eyes as if studying at that very moment everything about his temporary companion’s face and body language. “What information did you acquire on me, Mister Vaughn?”

“A name off of a list from a raid on an office building in London,” he bluffed.

“Do you see that I’m more than just a - a name on a list?”

“I don’t give a shit who you are. I was tasked to meet with you because you chose to trade information instead of getting life in prison.”

“I don’t believe you,” Veloso said wryly.

“What? That I don’t give a shit or that your name was on a list?”

Ramon laughed. “That you didn’t know Sydney Bristow. When I mentioned her before, your eyes,” he ticked against the roof of his mouth, “Se pusieron de un tono medio verde.” (they went a mean shade of green.)

Shaking his head Michael rose, his fingers buttoning the jacket back up across his stomach. “I’m done. You don’t want the money? We’ll find someone else that does. I’ll escort you out to the team waiting at the curb.” Another bluff, but hopefully one Ramon took seriously.

“Oh, good luck with that, amigo,” Veloso laughed, though he didn’t rise or seem to really care that Vaughn was threatening to leave. “The man is a ghost. It’ll take you years to even find his name. Unless you have another double on the inside, of course.”

Ramon relaxed. “Mis disculpas; sit.” (my apologies)

Looking toward the curtained exit and knowing that at least two of the guards were waiting for the boss to exit, he heaved a sigh and undid the jacket button before sitting back down on the edge of the couch. Folding his hands with his elbows atop his knees, he waited.

“The man they sent as my replacement was someone even I had never heard of, and that’s saying a lot. I made it my business for almost 25 years to know as many people, at least by face and name that I could. My friends in the Alliance assured me that he was perfect for the job and when he arrived and was sitting in my office, santa mierda was that guy a hard ass.” (holy shit)

Vaughn held back his impatience as Veloso took a long drink from the glass before settling back and smacking his lips. “Anthony Geiger. Which, is almost all I can tell you. I had my top agentes look into him and they couldn’t find so much as a parking ticket. This guy spent his life off the grid. I offered to teach him what I could before leaving, and he rejected all of it before giving me a date when I should vacate his new office. Puto gilipollas.” (fucking asshole)

Vaughn nodded and reached into his jacket pocket to extract his cell phone. Swiping the pattern with his thumb, he rose with a glare. “Thank you for the information, the transfer has been made. Once you confirm, I’ll be on my way.”

Tucking the phone back inside his jacket, he reached down and pretended to straighten his cuffs, his thumb and pointer finger pinching the platinum link and feeling a click. He knew it was working when the thumping music of the nightclub immediately stopped, Ramon confused and looking around. A moment later, Michael’s fist slammed into his nose, and though he  _ felt _ a crunch, he didn’t hear it.

Two more hits followed, Veloso choking on the blood filling his mouth from the two missing front teeth and, his now broken nose. As quick as the attack had come, it was over, and the agent rose breathing heavily and flexing his sore fingers above the former Alliance director as he sat slumped against the cushion. Thumping and voices returned a moment later, though Ramon was too stunned to realize that things were going back to normal.

“Your  _ friends _ murdered the woman I loved. Consider yourself lucky I didn’t feel like ripping your damn head off. The next time you’re meeting with the CIA, leave her name out of it if you’d like to keep your remaining teeth,” he growled before straightening up and making his way out the door. 

Dancing bodies surrounded him as he took a quick turn and got lost in the crowd, not bothering to look back and see if the guards had found their broken boss.

**...**

Vaughn woke surprisingly refreshed, though a moment of confusion hit him as he looked around the hotel room with uncertain green eyes. The meet with Sloane, the contact in London, the pulsing nightclub, punching the guy’s lights out - it all caught back up to him as he flopped back against the pillow with a heavy sigh. Wincing at the soreness of his knuckles on his left hand, a grin formed on his lips as he recalled the surprised and stupid look on Ramon’s bloodied face. He tossed out his other hand and fumbled around until he felt the rectangle shape of his cell. Wiggling the cord out from the bottom, the light blinded him momentarily as it turned on and booted up.

Five missed texts and two missed calls.  _ ‘Not as bad as last time,’ _ he mused. Seeing that he had plenty of time before his flight, he settled back and scanned the texts.

_ JACK: Irina okayed to visit. Will update you. _

No update followed, however, and that text had been sent three hours ago. His heartache rekindled and served as a shadowy reminder of why he’d taken the assignment across the pond in the first place. He’d managed to convince Kendall to send him instead of Weiss, the bald man glaring but authorizing the switch. Speaking of Weiss, he’d text just thirty minutes ago. Many times.

_ WEISS: Text this number when you wake up: 213-555-5247 _

_ WEISS: You haven’t yet...have you? I just called and you didn’t answer. _

_ WEISS: 213-555-5247. Whenever you get up, sleeping beauty. _

_ WEISS: another ghosted call. Fine.  _

Michael’s voice was low and growly since he’d just woken up, “okay, god.”

Pulling up the app he typed in the number and stared dumbly at the screen. “What the hell am I supposed to say?” 

He settled on CIA professional:

_ YOU: This is Agent Vaughn. I was asked to contact you. Please respond. _

Five minutes passed by and there was no answer. Another passed when the device rang in his hand making him jump and drop it with a thump against his chest. Cursing, he picked it up and frowned as the number was now calling him, so he answered with a flick of his thumb.

“This is Agent Vaughn,” he said, trying to sound alert and awake.

“‘Bout time. Hang on,” it was Weiss.

“Weiss? Did...did you get a second number just to mess with me?”

He heard shuffling in the background and Eric’s voice in the distance, though he couldn’t make out the words. Silence a moment later made him pull the phone away from his face, the furrowing of his brow getting deeper. The call was still connected.

“Hello?” he asked again.

“Hi.” Her voice soft and tentative, but it was her.

His heart slammed into his throat clogging his voice, though he managed a strangled, ”Syd?”

“Yeah.”

She could hear the thick emotion from his end and found that her nervousness was beginning to ebb at merely the sound of his voice. She’d forgotten how quickly he put her at ease, and at that moment she regretted the distance she’d forced between them.

“They...you got uh - a phone, huh?” Vaughn was trying to play it cool, for whatever reason he didn’t know, but despite his best efforts he stuttered and swallowed around the emotional lump in his throat.

“Yeah,” she said again, wishing she could be more eloquent. The headset pinched her ear but she was thankful that Eric had made the effort to set it up. She was able to slowly lift her right arm at the moment, the muscles aching and tight, but holding the phone to her ear for the length of an entire phone call would have been impossible.

The two lapsed into silence but it didn’t feel awkward. It felt like their souls were trying to reconnect after a long, forced hiatus.

“Now that I’m talking to you,” she swallowed. “I don’t really know where to start.”

Michael nodded, “I just want you to know that I’ll go whatever speed you need me to, Sydney. If you need me to keep my distance, no matter how hard that might be, I’ll do it for you.”

“I don’t think I want that.”

_ ‘Thank god,’ _ Vaughn thought. “Just...know that I - I’ll do whatever you need me to do.”

A small smile tilted her lips. “Thanks.”

“How...how are you?”

He heard her sigh and realized even that was a difficult question. “I’m okay,” she lied.

“That’s...good,” he didn’t call her on it.

Another silence took over and Vaughn feared that if he didn’t come up with something to say, she’d fall asleep on him. 

“I punched a guy in the face last night,” he admitted.

“Really? Why?”

Michael chuckled, “because he was an Alliance piece of shit.”

The anger behind his words for them, now more than before, made her wary. “Where are you?”

“London. We’re just...filling gaps in the information from the Luxembourg intel,” he explained. It felt natural, talking about work. Their relationship had started as work anyway, so maybe finding their way back through CIA jargon would be their saving grace.

“Did you get what you needed before or after you punched him?”

He laughed, “before. I got yelled at by Jack the last time I hit the guy too early.”

“You’re clearly a loose cannon,” Sydney grinned and he could hear the smile behind her words. That knowledge made his heart feel light.

“Seriously though, I...I only took the assignment because I,” he stopped with a sigh. “Nevermind.”

“No, don’t,” she swallowed, “please be honest with me,” she begged, trying to sound brave.

She wasn’t sure if he was going to take her up on the request as the silence went on. 

“Please?”

“I spent 42 days in that room next to your bed, Syd. When you woke up I thought, ‘ _ finally I’ll be able to hear her voice and she can  _ **_tell_ ** _ me that she’s okay _ ’,” he paused, and she could hear the sadness mixed with regret in his voice, “this week was almost the worst. Almost,” he whispered.

He heard her sniffle and began to back peddle, “I’m sorry, you don’t need this crap from me.”

“It’s okay,” she said quickly, though her words were watery.

“Syd, it’s fine. I’m talking to you now, and that’s all that matters.”

“I need you to be able to talk to me. The last thing I want is...is to be babied. I’m going to get it enough from everyone else, please don’t let me get it from you.”

He thought about choosing his words carefully, but he also knew that she would end up seeing right through his attempt. “I had to get away for a bit. Not from you, but from the fact that you were right there and it was getting harder and harder for me to stay away. This way, I’d be in London and not tempted to break into your room.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“I get it; it’s okay.”

Faint beeping could be heard over the headset, and in his mind, he could see the layout of the medical room perfectly. They sat quietly for a little while as each tried to decide where to go with the conversation. He hadn’t meant to hit her with so much real all at once, but the words just came out like a turned-on tap he couldn’t stop.

“You can talk to me; you know that, right? I mean...you don’t have to tell me everything or...or even anything. But you can if you want,” he offered.

A few silent moments passed and he was worried that she’d fallen to sleep until she started speaking.

“Where can you start when everyone already knows everything? I can’t have a conversation with  _ anyone _ without feeling that everything is different. It’s like it’s not  _ me _ they’re talking to, but some poor defenseless victim.”

“Syd, you’re still you.”

Tears filled her eyes again, “great,” she scoffed.

Vaughn sighed unsure how to respond, so he decided to go with a change of subject. ”Did...you...have a good talk with your mom?”

Sydney frowned, knowing that this was the segue she had been waiting for since she didn’t have the courage to bring it up on her own. “It was a lot more honest than I thought was possible between us,” she said quietly.

“Honest? Irina?”

She let out a weak chuckle. “I...learned a lot.”

“Syd, you sound tired. Why don’t...why don’t you call me after you get some rest?”

The longing in his voice begged her not to take his offer as he never wanted the call to end, but he could hear the fatigue behind her words and didn’t want to push for his own selfish needs.

“No, please don’t hang up I,” she begged, “I’m fine. I promise.”

“No - I,” he stuttered, “I didn’t mean I was going to hang up it’s just...you sound tired.”

“I slept for forty days, I should be fine,” she joked, his laugh making the panic that got her heart thumping to settle. “Seriously, I...I want to talk with you about this. It’s important and...I don’t think it should wait.”

“I’m not goin’ anywhere,” he promised, both minds rewinding to their time together in London before all of this had happened. It felt as if it had been years ago, Vaughn lingering on her voice in his head saying  _ ‘you don’t get to decide that’ _ at his words.

“Our families knew each other in Virginia,” she started.

Vaughn frowned. “What?”  _ ‘Maybe Jack and I aren’t as close as I thought.’ _

“My mom told me the truth about a lot of things, but that was the first surprise. You were almost four and I was almost one and...our dads were really great friends.”

Michael sat up leaned his back against the padded headboard as the blanket pooled over his lap. “Jack never mentioned that he knew my father.”

“I know. Doesn’t that seem weird?”

“Well, your dad takes second place in the office for secrets, but that’s only because you’re mom is technically in the office,” he grumbled, an uneasy feeling settling in his stomach. “That’s...that’s not all she told you, was it?”

Sydney shook her head lightly though he couldn’t see it, “no.”

“Was it - was it about  _ my  _ dad?”

“Yeah.”

Vaughn sighed. “It’s in the past, Syd. You don’t have to keep apologizing for her. Truth or not, family past or not, nothing she did makes me love you less.”

The warm fuzzy feeling of him admitting his feelings made the ball of dread loosen in her sternum, though only for a moment. “I know, but-”

“Nothing she could say would change anything between us.” 

“I know, but-”

“I get it,” he interrupted again, agitation edging into his voice and taking it from soft and gentle to harder and edged. “I get why Jack didn’t tell us that our families knew each other. I mean, the friendship didn’t exactly work out-” he grumbled.

“She didn’t do it, Michael,” Sydney blurted.

Silence. 

“Yes she did,” he countered in a harsh whisper.

“No. She...she couldn’t. She found out it was him and...he recognized her and-” she stopped hearing his scoff.

“She just...told you she didn’t do it?”

“Yes.”

“And you believed her? Syd, how many times does she have to lie to you before you get that she’s just a liar?”

She frowned, “wait, what? She didn’t lie about this, Vaughn.”

“Because she  _ said _ she didn’t? Sydney...you’re smarter than this. She told you what you wanted to hear because...be-because,” he stopped, not knowing where to go next.

“Because what? Because she felt bad for me? Because she  _ should _ feel bad for me?”

“What? No! Of...of course not.” He softened his tone and swung his suddenly restless legs off the edge of the bed. Rising with a huff he paced over to the door of the hotel room and back two or three times with slow and determined strides. “I’m sorry I just...I don’t believe her.”

“Why don’t you believe  _ me _ ?”

He sighed. “It’s not about  _ you _ , Syd. You can’t just...expect me to say that everything’s okay now because she said so. I’ve seen the file.”

“Listen, I know that this is hard to hear. It - it was hard for me too, but she told me everything, Vaughn. Every detail. They were friends-”

His harsh laugh cut her off. “Friends? God help anyone  _ else  _ that was her  **friend** .”

Sydney sighed as everything began to feel heavy. “I couldn’t keep this secret, Vaughn.”

Another moment of silence passed between them, the soul-connecting feeling beginning to wane as they realized that something wasn’t the same. He spoke first.

“You don’t talk to anyone for a week, and the first person you wanted to see was your mother. And I was fine with that; I understood. She’d been through a lot, plus she hadn’t seen a single moment of that  _ goddamned  _ stream,” he growled, and she could almost feel the rage behind his words as he mentioned the room with Flynn. While Vaughn felt rage, Sydney felt anxiety wrap like vines around her lungs.

The deep pit was beginning to pull her in as her mind went unbidden to the chair. Crackling twitches ran up and down the nerves in her arms as phantom wire tightened around her wrists. She wiggled her fingers, wincing at the painful stabs radiating from her left hand and wrist, but she did it anyway. It grounded her for the moment as she tried to claw her way back out from the memories sucking at her.

Vaughn stopped his pacing and tightly closed his eyes, his head tipping back as he faced up at the ceiling. As he tried to calm himself his ears tuned into the ragged breaths coming through the earpiece of his phone. “Syd, I’m sorry. I...it’s okay. I shouldn’t take any of this out on you; I didn’t mean to snap.”

“It’s...okay,” she whimpered, and his heart broke for a moment.

“I believe you.”

She silently shook her head.

“I do. I just...I need time to digest this. I’ve only known the truth for a year, and...I don’t know what to say.” He paced back and forth a few more times before flopping back onto the edge of the bed. “I should’ve kept my mouth shut.”

Her breathing calmed down a bit from what he could hear, and he realized that he had been right to feel nervous about their first interaction after she woke - she wasn’t the same. Or maybe it was him - maybe  _ he _ wasn’t the same? Hell, he didn’t know. He had been hoping that they could just immediately swing back into the same banter and light conversations they had in the month before she’d been taken and that the reality of their ease with one another would heal her. 

Which the psychologist had told him wouldn’t be the case, but he hadn’t put much stock into that assessment.

_ “You don’t know our relationship. We’ve always been able to be honest with one another. There’s nothing but trust there,” _ he’d said smugly, his words now biting him in the ass. He had to change the subject and change it fast. He compartmentalized Irina and his father intent on dealing with it later.

“Can I just say...your voice is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard,” he admitted quietly.

Despite the tired despair that was pulling at her, she smiled. “I bet you say that to all your coma girlfriends,” she joked with a sniffle.

Michael let out a genuine laugh as the twisting tightness in his chest began to loosen. “You sound really tired. Just...you drift away. I’ll be right here.”

“Will you be here when I wake up?” The slight tremor in her voice gave away how unsure she was about everything.

“I’ll try, but I am in London. But I’ll be home in twelve hours and you’ll be my first stop. I promise,” he swore with a glance at the alarm clock.

“Okay. Be safe?”

“I love you. Despite the fact that I was an asshole, I’m so glad you called.” He didn’t want to hang up, even though it was his idea.

“Love you too,” she whispered as her blinks went long and her body began to relax. 

Michael stayed on the call until he heard her even breathing, waiting until she was completely asleep. He listened for a little longer before hanging up and setting the phone back on the nightstand next to his watch. 

His father’s watch. 

Lifting it between the side of his pointer finger and brushing his thumb over the shiny glass, the grooved worry lines on his forehead sprang to life.

_ ‘Truth takes time,’ _ the Jack voice said in his head.  _ ‘And all we have is time.’ _

**...**


	23. Be Mad

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [](https://www.flickr.com/photos/190971129@N06/50592964212/in/dateposted/)

Butterflies danced in his stomach and were propelled into his lungs as the elevator took him down. The doors opened, but he didn’t step out. Adjusting his blue blazer, buttoning and unbuttoning the front in an effort to decide if he should look casual or professional, his fidgeting resulted with a scoff and an eye roll as ding echoed and the doors started to close.

Panicking slightly he slapped at the button but still didn’t step out into the quiet hallway even when the doors followed his button-mashy command. 

“Are you...stuck?” The young nurse stood leaning on the counter with a confused grin as the dark-skinned agent jumped at what he thought was a sudden appearance. She’d been watching him war with himself for the last thirty seconds or so, a smile tilting her lips.

“No,” he said quickly and stepped out. “No...no, I just - I was just lost in thought.”

“Jamie,” she laughed at his nervousness, extending her hand.

“Dixon. Marcus,” he corrected.

“Vaughn brought you down here a few weeks ago, right?” At his nod, she gestured toward the closed medical room door but noticed his hesitation. “How do you know Sydney?”

It was still strange for him to think of his partner in only the past tense. The words ‘former partner’ sounded dirty, and he hated that it made him think of her as gone again when he’d only just gotten her back.

“We were partners for just over seven years. You know...with the bad guys.”

“Ah,” Jamie said and slowly escorted the man over to the medical room’s closed door. “Well, you must be pretty close, I’m glad she’s opening up a bit.”

Dixon frowned. “Why do you say that?”

“I mean...she asked to see her mom, Francie, and now you - and that’s it so far. I’m just saying,” she faltered, “I mean...seven years is - you must be close, that’s all.”

It was his turn to chuckle as she tripped over her words. “Yeah, we’re pretty close.”

Jamie patted him on the arm and left with a soft smile, his brown eyes following as she walked back to the nurses’ station and flopped into the comfortable office chair before swinging her feet onto the desk and lifting a worn book into her hands.

_ 'She wants to see you before Jack? Well...before  _ **_Vaughn_ ** _?’ _

Heaving a sigh, he pushed his worry back and slowly pulled the door to the room open. A television was on across the room,  _ Pulp Fiction _ playing and drawing his attention.

“Hey,” her sweet voice said quietly, Dixon feeling his throat tighten as a flood of emotions bubbled to the surface.

She was propped up at an angle that was almost sitting, the oxygen tubes draping across both cheekbones and fitted just under her nostrils. They stared quietly at one another for several moments as both tried to compartmentalize their emotions and figure out where to start. It was hard to believe that this would be their first honest conversation in almost two years, but the looming secret that she’d had to keep was no longer a wedge between them.

A tear dripped from his eye, Sydney nodding, “I know. I’m sorry. I...I didn’t want you to find out that way. I wanted so much to be the one to tell you the truth but-”

“Stop.” His order was forceful and startled her into silence. “You saved my life...and my wife, Robin, and Steven,” he left off moving to the side of her bed. Holding his hand out he waited for her to gingerly lift hers and set it in his palm before he settled his other overtop. “I love you for that,” he said with a wide and teary smile.

She broke with a sob pulling at him lightly as he got the hint and leaned awkwardly over the bar and pulled the suddenly frail young woman into a hug. The last time he’d thought her fragile was that night in Sao Paulo, and since then it was something of a dirty word when he thought of his partner. She wasn’t fragile or frail, she was...Sydney; Sydney was strong even through moments of weakness. However, this Sydney was new, and a blossoming need to protect this newborn Sydney from the world grew in his heart.

He rubbed her shoulder for long moments until she calmed and he loosened his hold. Letting her settle back against the fluffy pillow he reached up with both hands and cupped her cheeks, his thumbs brushing at the tears from below the tubes.

“It’s been a while since we had a meltdown moment together,” he said and a strangled laugh broke through her sniffles.

He lifted the glass of water up, her lips drinking from the straw as she cleared her throat. “I...owe you a lot of explanation.”

“Why do you think that?” he countered.

“Dixon, c’mon. I -  _ lied _ to you for eighteen months. You deserved better than that.”

Marcus laughed. “You remember that one mission in New York? You know, when we had to break into that guy’s penthouse suite on New Year’s Eve?”

“Yeah,” she admitted, not entirely sure where he was going with his reminiscing.

“It was a total disaster.”

“Because  _ you  _ were nervous,” she grinned.

“Yeah, I was. You were going in by yourself, and I was out of my mind with worry.”

Her puffy eyes glistened with more tears but the tilting grin stayed on her lips.

Marcus shook his head, “you wanted to knock my lights out when I kept repeating details and double-checking the equipment.” She chuckled lightly at his admission.

“You made me late and I didn’t even get the intel.”

“Do you remember what I said to you before you stepped out of that van?”

Her smile faltered a little. “You...you said you felt like you were dropping me off at my first day of school.”

Marcus nodded. “I was nervous because you’ve  _ always _ been like a daughter to me. I saw in our first year that you didn’t have your father in your life and...you’re so easy to love, Syd. It drove me crazy that your  _ real  _ dad didn’t want to have anything to do with you. You were - are - such an amazing person, and I was terrified of losing you that night.”

Dixon moved away from the bed and slipped his hands into his pockets, his eyes focused on a single stock photo image of an American flag in a gaudy framed portrait hanging on the wall. Sydney sniffled but didn’t speak, mostly because she didn’t know where the conversation was going.

“At first, I was upset. But I-” he paused and turned, making sure to hold her gaze for a moment, “I  _ never _ felt angry. Well...that’s not true. I’ve spent a lot of the last month and a half being  _ very _ angry, just not at you, Sydney.” He turned back to the poster.

“Dixon, I tried so many times to bring you into the fold. I knew better than anyone how loyal you were and what a good asset you would make. Vaughn was right every time he countered me. I couldn’t sign you up for double agent duty, it was something you’d have to choose yourself. It was dangerous enough for me to be involved and I didn’t even have a family. I’m sorry you were kept in the dark for so long.”

Marcus laughed and reached out, his hands straightening the slightly askew frame before stepping back and making sure it was even. “If anything, I owe  _ you _ an apology. I meant it when I said that calling your loyalty into question was a dark time for me, and I meant all the times I said that I trusted you.”

“I don’t know why,” she grumbled and looked down at the rumpled blanket over her lap.

“This random guy shows up at my door almost 47 days ago. In hindsight he looked distraught, but...at the time I just assumed he was coffee-deprived since it was something like six o’clock in the morning. The look on his face, Sydney - I had  _ seen _ that look before. I saw it on my own face in the rear-view mirror that night in New York the moment you left the van, and I saw it in his haunted green eyes. He was...heartbroken because of what he’d lost.”

“I’m sorry,” she repeated, more tears falling from her eyes.

He turned back with a warm smile. “I know. I also know that you did what you did and said what you said to  _ protect  _ me. We made that promise to each other and,” he paused taking her hand back into his, “I’ll be damned if that promise went away because you had to hide the truth from me. I’ll never put any blame on you for being a double, Sydney.”

The smile she shared was genuine, and she felt the anxiety in her soul begin to drift away. “It killed me every time I had to lie to you,” she admitted.

“That’s what Vaughn said. If I’d known at the airport that I was pushing you to share a relationship you weren’t even supposed to have, I wouldn’t have poked so much, you know that.”

Sydney shook her head, “it’s okay.”

“Seriously though...how are you feeling right now? If you’re tired or if you were sleeping, I can come back later,” he said quickly seeing the fatigue written across her features.

“You’re the third person to ask that, but...I’m fine.”

Marcus squinted his eyes into a semi-serious glare. “Tell me the truth.”

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” she lied.

“You don’t  _ have _ to say anything, but I’m genuinely curious about how you’re feeling, that’s all. If you’re really feeling fine, that’s great.”

Sydney growled, “of  _ course _ I’m not fine.” More tears escaped as her chin quivered. “I don’t know how to be fine right now, but I’m trying.”

Marcus just sent her another soft smile and rubbed the back of her hand with his thumb. “You don’t have to try, Sydney. Not with me. You can tell me  **exactly** how you feel right now, or not. It’s okay either way.”

“I…” she paused as her gaze darted around the room before stopping on the television.  _ Pulp Fiction  _ was still playing, though she’d muted it when Dixon had entered. The scene where Uma Thurman’s character lay nearly dead on the floor grabbed her attention. She could almost feel the sharp pain the moment the needle pierced the sternum and drove adrenaline into the failing heart, and she knew that the same action had been done to hers after they’d established a weak rhythm during her extraction. At least, that’s what she'd learned when the psychologist had given her the information from the rescue once she felt she was ready.

“I died, Dixon.”

Her partner nodded sadly but didn’t speak.

“I...I died. And now...now I’m just supposed to hide in the basement of an office where I’ve never legitimately used the front door. Who knows how long this will take? My dad’s been at it for almost thirty years and...I’ve been in the deep end for eighteen months.”

“You know that you’re closer than anyone’s ever been. Because of  _ you _ , they’re going down sooner rather than later. That other stuff? The healing and figuring it out? That’s coming too. You’re not dead, Syd - you just need to find your way back. Everyone that loves you is here with you-” he started, but her disgusted reaction surprised him.

She scoffed and thumped her hands on the bed in a small tantrum, wincing as the left side jarred painfully in her shoulder. “Everyone is here because I screwed up. I  _ ruined their lives _ ! Will and Francie and...and your  _ family  _ \- you’re all  _ stuck  _ down here. You didn’t  _ choose _ to be in a CIA basement!”

Marcus could recognize that she didn’t want sympathy, she wanted to be angry, and that was a right she’d definitely earned. So he decided to join her. Pulling his hands away he huffed, “Syd - you didn’t stick me down here. Tell me: how long were you a double before you asked the CIA to put my family on a list just in case something happened to you?”

Sydney was confused at the sudden shift in not only the conversation, but also his demeanor. “What?”

“How long had you been a double before you put my family and me, and Will and Francie, on a protection list? What list did you put us on; did it already exist?”

She shook her head, “a...a few days in I had Vaughn put one together with the director.”

Dixon nodded. “Okay. This was right after you were attacked; right after you gave yourself a mission to Taipei where you had your teeth pulled out, and right after you were confirmed for double agent duty.” She nodded in confused confirmation. “Was your first thought ‘poor me I’m hurting people’ or was it ‘I need to  _ protect these people’ _ ?” His pointed and hard stare weakened her anger a bit.

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know? I know.  _ That’s  _ who you  _ are _ , Sydney. You didn’t  **get** us into anything, you got us  **out** of  _ everything _ . My children would be  _ dead _ if you hadn’t, do you realize that? Your friends...your father - all dead if you hadn’t reacted how you did. I’ll bet,” he paused with a chuckle, “I’ll bet that when you found out you were compromised, the first thing you did was accept it and not fight back because an airport full of people isn’t the place for a shootout, am I right?”

She nodded.

“You could have taken ‘em, couldn’t you?”

“Probably,” she whispered, her eyes were held transfixed by his brown, tear-filled stare.

His voice kept all of its intensity but went low and gravelly. “You took it, Syd. You... _ took it.  _ For all of us you...you sat there and took it for six...days,” the last word sobbed out between his lips, his chin trembling as his arms hung low at his sides. “You’re absolutely within your right to be mad, baby.  **Be mad** . Hell, I am,” he admitted.

“I am mad,” she said, though her voice was more of a squeak than the confident statement she intended.

“Good!  **Be mad** ! Don’t doubt and don’t feel pity for yourself.  _ You  _ survived the unsurvivable, and through  _ that _ , you’re still sticking it to them. They’ll never see it coming. Who knows - in a month or two; three? You’ll get your chance to be the match that burns them to the ground, I promise you that.” His promise was fierce and he slowly walked back over and reclaimed her hand between his palms. “I promise.”

Sydney cried through a nod and buried her face into the cool fabric of his jacket as she clung to his words and presence. Long moments passed until they both calmed enough to pull apart, and he saw the fatigue written across every feature of her face, but hidden behind her hooded gaze was the rekindled fire in her brown eyes that had been missing when he’d come in earlier. Smiling, he cupped her cheeks.

“I’ll follow your lead from this basement not because I’m stuck and don’t have a choice, but because I’d choose this even if things had turned out differently. You wanna know why?”

She nodded as her tears spilled against his fingers.

“Because you’re Sydney  _ goddamned _ Bristow, and that’s a name they’ll  **never** have a chance to forget.”

**...**

Her eyes opened to the pitch darkness of the cell, the damp smell of mold and urine hitting her nostrils.

The tight muscles in her neck twinged as she whipped her head to the side as fast as possible to face the crack of light coming from under the door.

Had all of it been a dream? 

No; it couldn't have been, could it?

Could it?

Every muscle in her body protested as she went to sit up, the biting zip ties pinching her already raw skin at the wrists and ankles. She could feel the panicking tightness in her chest, her ribs aching as she went limp against the cool metal of the bare cot heaving panicked sobs.

The tears poured from the edges of her eyes into the hair at her temples and her chin quivered, but she tried to collect herself. What had happened? She forced her mind to piece together the events from the last time she’d been awake. 

The secondary room…

The camera in the corner…

_ Pulp Fiction  _ playing in the background…

Her fist connecting with Flynn’s jaw…

Rough hands dragging her back to her cell…

The phone call with Vaughn…

Something wasn’t right. Something was wrong. She shook her head slightly and dug the edge of a nail into the side of her broken finger, the pain shooting up her arm - but she didn’t wake. The pain was there, it was real, but she wasn’t waking up.

She tried to pull free her hand, twisting it back and forth, but the sharp plastic bit into her damaged skin and succeeded at merely digging deeper into the back of her wrist. Sydney kept twisting, her limited movements frantic as blood leaked from the gouges down to the tips of her numbing fingers.

“Wake up,” she growled with a sob and started moving her left hand the same as the right hoping that the blood would make them slip out of the restraints. She wasn’t having much luck. “Wake up, damn it!”

“You’re already awake, love.” Flynn’s voice bounced off the concrete walls. Sharp, nasally, far away.

Her eyes shot open as sudden low light chased away the cell, faint beeping replacing the Brit’s taunting laughter as the edges of her vision blurred into focus.

“Syd, wake up,” a soft voice prodded to her right. “You’re okay...it’s okay. You’re safe,” it promised.

Her eyes finally cleared a bit and she turned to look at the face of the man standing beside the bed, loving green instead of icy blue looking into her frightened soul.

“Vaughn,” she whimpered.

“I’m right here; everything’s okay, I promise.”

His hands were gentle, his lips warm and soft, and Sydney ignored the painful pinch in her shoulder as she wrapped her arm around his neck and burrowed with a sob against his throat.

**…**


	24. Not Selfish, Just Broken

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [](https://www.flickr.com/photos/190971129@N06/50592992082/in/dateposted/)  
> 

**Two Weeks Later**

“You said you had things I could help with when I got better. Please, dad? I’m losing my mind.” Sydney begged with a groan as Jamie stretched her arm out trying to loosen the tight muscles and injured tendons of the sore left shoulder.

Jack sighed. “Sydney, it’s only been two weeks, sweetheart.”

The nurse read the room and put the shoulder harness back around Sydney’s torso, attached the velcro, and fit the woman’s arm into the sling to hold it in place. Gripping the frail wrist made the patient wince and suck a breath through her teeth, and Jamie frowned with a hand on her hip.

“I thought you said your wrist didn’t hurt today,” she grumbled.

The brunette shrugged with her good shoulder. "It only hurts when you squeeze it.”

“Mmhmm,” Jamie mumbled as she picked up the brace and slid it over the scarred fingers up to the middle of her forearm. “I know you hate it, but I also don’t care.”

“Jerk,” Sydney mock growled with a smile, forcing a laugh from Jamie’s lips.

“Be nice to your dad,” the nurse ordered in a whisper before offering to help her patient back into bed from the adjacent chair, but she waved her off.

Once they were alone, Sydney turned and repeated the request to her father, and Jack felt pride bubble to the surface at the fire that had returned to her eyes.

“Dad, I’m not going to sit and hide, and they don’t get to get away with it; I can still help with things.”

The father quietly regarded his daughter for a moment before moving over to the wheelchair in the corner and rolling it close. He held out his hand and waited for her to accept. Her reach was tentative, and his suddenly gentle eyes and soft smile confused her. Still, she followed his lead and gave him her trust. Helping her into the chair they headed toward the exit and he felt the laser of her eyes on him in an instant.

“Dad, I...if someone sees me,” she had a worried tremble in her suddenly shaky voice.

He heard the fear and understood, knowing that her brave front screaming _‘I’m going to keep fighting’_ was a shadow puppet for the real, broken young woman inside trying to refind her place. “Trust me, sweetheart.”

Jamie stopped them by the nursing station, “no,” she growled, hands on her hips.

“It’s time,” Jack countered.

“It’s time when the doc _s_ _ays_ it’s time. She can’t even walk, Jack.”

Sydney frowned, "stop talking about me like I'm not here. What’s going on?”

“I’ll bring her right back up, but she needs this.” He wheeled the chair past and hit the button to call the elevator, Jamie rolling her eyes.

“ **Right** back up **!** ”

The elevator doors began to close once the pair was inside and Jack sent the worried young woman a wink and a promise to return as soon as possible before anyone noticed, the doctor in particular.

The ride down was silent, Jack giving away no secrets on his face or in his body language, and Sydney huffed in frustration though she was curious to see what was on the bottom floor of the facility. She hadn’t even known that the _medical_ floor existed, let alone any others beneath the living and recreation quarters. The doors didn’t open once the ride stopped, and Jack handed her a blank white keycard.

“Swipe to the right and put in the code 011747,” his voice booming in the enclosed space.

The numbers beeped as she entered the code and a green light flashed on the panel triggering the doors to unlock and open. Stark walls greeted them, Sydney surprised and yet not as everywhere else was unpainted government-issued off-white, why not here? Jack wheeled her through the doors and she took a moment to look around. To the left stretched at least fifty feet of hallway that ended with an open door to a workout room, machines sitting unused in the dark space as the exterior lights reflected in the mirrors on the opposite wall.

She noticed another room with a closed door between the elevator and the exercise room leaving her to wonder what lay inside. Directly ahead was a conference room with large plush chairs surrounding a round cherry-oak table. It couldn’t seat a large meeting but had enough space for a small group of selected officials. With this place being buried so deeply in the basement she could only imagine who had sat at the table over the years.

The white walls and tile continued to the right and obligatory military photos hung in simple black frames along the way. Jack turned the chair and began rolling in the direction she was looking, another closed door at the end of the hallway getting closer. Her eyes skimmed the hanging photos, very typical for a government facility. An aerial shot of the Pentagon, the American flag picture she’d memorized that was also hanging in her medical room, and a squadron of fighter jets flying in the clouds.

Kicking the unlatched door open with her foot, her jaw dropped. It was...her room. 

Her eyes swept in a circle and she balked at the sight. This room was actually a bit larger than hers at the apartment, but everything matched. Her queen-sized bed and light wood dresser and nightstands were exactly where she remembered. Turning to the right she spotted the desk with her computer plugged in and charged, and between here and there sat her comfortable reading chair and the stand which held the lamp she’d owned for going on fifteen years. A stack of books sat binding out beside said lamp and she recognized those as well.

“I...I don’t understand,” she whispered.

Jack chuckled and rolled the chair over to the edge of the bed before using his toes to lock the wheels in place. “When you were unconscious we had a group pose as movers to clear out the apartment. Will and Francie needed their things but we were at a bit of a loss on what to do with yours until Kendall showed us this floor. It’s called the _Admiral’s Apartment_ and it’s meant for highly classified dignitaries, secret presidential hideaways, things like that. For now, until the Alliance falls, it’s yours.”

“All of it?” Sydney met her father’s eyes as tears swirled in the brown depths.

“All of it.” He paused and held out his hands offering to pull her up from the chair. She nodded dumbly and his arms wrapped around her waist and shoulders to lift until she got her legs beneath her, but didn’t release enough to let them do much more than touch the floor. Sydney was wobbly and unstable, and though the left leg was in a sturdy brace, it wasn’t able to hold any weight. 

The joint had spent the better part of five days out of place before the medical team at the JTF even started working on it, so it had a long way to go to heal completely. They’d done minor surgery to repair some of the damage, and only in the last few days had a majority of the swelling gone down and the stitches been removed.

She winced as it bent, but it all faded away as soon as her backside came into contact with the comforting plush of her own bed. Her muscles stiffened a bit at the effort to sit upright, so she gave in with a sigh and flopped to her back atop the comforter. Jack sat beside her for a moment before following suit, the two ending up shoulder to shoulder staring at the ceiling.

Several minutes passed in silence and he thought she’d fallen to sleep until her quiet voice dashed the thought.

“Can I ask you a question?” She was tentative and soft, anything but confident.

“Of course,” he said as he closed his eyes and relaxed.

“I know it’s...what Flynn said was probably just to get a reaction, but when they offered to trade,” she swallowed past the words and turned to face the man she’d never fully known, “did you call?” 

His eyes reopened, his heart sunk, and Jack wanted to lie but knew it wouldn’t change the outcome. It didn’t stop him from wanting the words, “of course, Sydney,” to leave his lips. He thought back to the moment her eyes locked with his through the camera and tears blurred his vision.

"I should have," he croaked.

Sydney shook her head, "I'm not accusing, Dad, just asking. I meant it when I said it was okay; that...I was _assuring_ you that it was okay."

"Kendall ordered me not to, and deep down I knew it wasn’t legitimate, but I also knew it would be too tempting so...I gave my phone to Michael."

"Who?" Sydney was half-joking, her father offering a segue she couldn't pass up.

Jack chuckled and reached up to wipe at his eyes, "Vaughn."

"Have I finally found the one guy you're okay with me dating?"

He chuckled and shook his head again before turning to regard her with open and honest blue eyes. 

_'That’s a first,’_ she thought.

"While I still don’t think anyone out there is good enough for you, he's as close as you can get," he saw the dimple on her right cheek as her smile flickered for a moment, his eyes traveling to the healing and slightly faded scar on her eyebrow.

They lapsed into a comfortable silence, both retraining their eyes on the ceiling. He could tell she wanted to know more but was struggling to find the words.

"Sweetheart, you can ask me anything. I promise I’ll give you a straight answer."

“How...close are you with Vaughn?”

Jack grinned, “I haven’t wanted to kill him for a couple of weeks now.”

“Dad,” she narrowed her eyes, though a small grin tilted her lips.

The father nodded and looked back to the ceiling. “I never thought I would consider him a colleague, let alone someone I could implicitly trust, but that’s what’s happened. I call him son every now and again just to keep him on his toes. An eventuality for which I’m preparing myself.”

"Why does Vaughn...not want to be here right now?" The words came tumbling out.

Sydney knew her father would be the best source of information at the moment as he was the one willing to hold her in conversation, more than she could say for the subject of their discussion. The Flynn voice reared its ugly head to taunt from her subconscious the moment the question left her lips.

_'Vaughn doesn’t want damaged goods, love.’_

She tamped it down, though the seed of doubt had been sowed and there wasn’t much she could do to dig it out. It had been three days since she’d seen him, and she’d learned from Weiss that he had been sent on a mission and hadn’t had much time for any explanation as he went from a meeting straight to the plane.

Even before that, however, he was distant and it had been eating at her bit by bit.

"What makes you think he...doesn't want to be here?" Jack knew she had changed her mind on what to ask mid-sentence and gave away that he knew with an identical pause in just the right place.

"Where is he?"

"Sweden; intel swap."

"Why him?"

Jack turned to find her staring at him, a smile raising the side of his mouth, "because he doesn't have you or me any longer, Sydney. He's the agent that has the most experience with this operation, and he has the flexibility of being field-rated."

Sydney knew all of this, but it didn't make it any easier. "He didn't mention new intel, that's all."

"Sydney," Jack sighed and sat up, "we know you hate the ' _we are just trying to protecting you'_ line, but it's honestly all that concerns either of us every single day. You've been awake for three weeks and able to gain some independence in half of that time. That's impressive but...your focus _has_ to be on recovery right now."

"I do hate that," she grumbled. Her brain wanted for her to sit up, stand up, and start a fight, but her body wouldn't cooperate. Her arms that were once so easy to swing in a punch felt like they were chained to heavy weights, and her legs were the same.

“It’s foolish to push yourself too quickly. After everything you’ve been through, please take this time to get well.”

Sydney scoffed repeating his words through an exhale, “everything I’ve been through.”

"After the...second day," he started, and Sydney immediately felt a ball of lead drop into her guts as icy tendrils began squeezing and rising within her abdomen.

"After he hurt you for the first time on camera, Vaughn became the one and only man in your life that earned my respect."

Her curiosity got the better of her. "How?"

"Because he left the room. The - the conference room where the team "strategized"," Sydney felt the strong sarcasm behind the word her father used, even without the need for his fingers to act out the bunny ears. “That day was hard because...we knew what was at stake but it hadn’t yet become visceral, and that was when it all changed.”

“He left?” Sydney’s voice was an emotional squeak.

Jack nodded. “We felt it in our stomach every time he broke your skin with that damn knife; it made us sick. Will left first but Vaughn...he tried. His usual nervous ticks,” the father paused with a swallow, “tapping his pen or fidgeting with the bronze coin were abandoned because every ounce of his energy was focused on the screen, same as mine.”

“Dad, I-”

“He lasted ten...maybe twelve before his heart wouldn’t let him watch any longer. One of my biggest regrets was not following his lead.”

Sydney bit at her lip in an attempt to staunch the fear bubbling up from her stomach like bile. “I can’t...don’t make me go back there,” she begged.

Jack focused his sympathetic gaze on his daughter but continued. "He is the only man you've ever dated that stood up to me with his shoulders squared, the only man that tried everything he could try, and the only man I've ever seen more broken than myself. Go easy on him, sweetheart. We all know to go easy on _you_ despite the fact that you hate it, but I've been the only one going easy on _him_. He needs your understanding more than you know."

Sydney nodded with a sniffle as she took a few deep breaths in an attempt to calm her panicked soul. Jack lifted his arm over her head to pull her close and she buried her sniffling face into his shoulder as he held her. A few minutes passed and her breathing evened out, Jack knowing instantly that she’d fallen asleep. Extracting himself as quietly as possible he rose with a small stretch and moved to the desk. Writing a note explaining for her to call him when she woke he stuck it to the side of the phone on the nightstand.

It felt like she was five and he was tucking her in for an afternoon nap, finding her somewhere in the house in a crumpled and awkward position after trying to avoid said nap until her body gave in wherever she was hiding. She was nearly fifteen pounds underweight, a lot of it muscle that had receded after almost two months with little to no movement, so lifting her up to the pillow was easy even though he was so much older than the last time he'd done this particular action.

Seeming to sense that it was her own pillow, she turned her head and buried it in the soft plush with a small sigh. Draping the blanket atop Jack left quietly. He knew he’d get an earful from Jamie and Doc Greene, but if she had earned just one thing after her entire life had been uprooted, it was a nap in her own bed.

**…**

Sydney’s eyes opened to soft lamplight. For a moment everything felt, smelled, and seemed familiar, but the ceiling wasn’t that of her apartment. Nor was it the medical room or the dingy cement cell she’d been kept in for nearly a week. Looking around as her brain reoriented, she spotted Vaughn sitting in her reading chair with one of her books in his hand as the other propped his head up on its fist.

“Hey,” she whispered, catching his attention.

Turning with the soft smile just for her, “hey. Good nap?”

“Kinda like waking from a miracle. The real world is still there, but for a little while I just didn’t care.” She turned to look back at the ceiling giving her back a little stretch. It ended with a wince as her body reminded her again that everything _wasn’t_ back to normal.

Michael chuckled and closed the book, placing it with the others on the pile. He stayed put, however, keeping his ankles crossed and legs stuck out while regarding her with tired eyes.

“How was Sweden?”

“It went well. We have all of the directors and partners’ information and started to compile a list of highest-level agents.”

Sydney nodded, “it sounds like you’re making good progress. Anything I can help with?”

Michael shook his head. “Not yet. We’ll get you back in soon.”

She frowned and turned her head to glare over at him. “You know I hate being excluded,” she started.

“You know this isn't about exclusion,” he countered. 

"It sure feels like it."

Vaughn sighed and looked toward the other side of the room. "You've gotta give it time."

"I can read files and help sort intel, Vaughn. I sit on my ass all day and," she paused with a frustrated grumble, "I just want to get _one thing_ back."

Michael nodded. "I know. I'm sorry, I really am. None of this is fair."

Sydney's face was a mask of emotion, but anger was at the forefront. Vaughn chanced a glance and saw the frown marring her face, a sight that had become all too common each moment he spent with her the last week or so. He sighed and sat up to set his elbows on his knees and sort through the thoughts in his sleep-deprived brain.

"Believe me when I say I can’t wait for you to be well enough to help with things, Syd, but we’re going to follow the rules. Both docs say you aren’t ready.”

“If you don’t want to do this anymore, you don’t have to.” The words were a strangled whisper and Vaughn tilted his head to hear her better. She was still avoiding his gaze.

“Do what?”

“Us.”

Vaughn huffed angrily, “don’t hit me with that, Sydney, that’s not fair.”

“You’ve barely said one word to me in almost a week, Vaughn, what am I supposed to think? We even had a whole conversation about it, yet nothing has changed.”

Michael rose, his legs twitching with the urge to run away. Sadness and anger bubbled together in his stomach, so he tried to focus on which emotion would help him out of the current situation more. “I’m the only one doing this right now, Syd. You can’t blame me for having a mission.”

“It’s not blame, Vaughn, I’m just saying that,” she paused mid-sentence as if deciding how to break bad news, “I’m giving you an out.” 

Sydney couldn’t meet his eyes but could feel his stare.

“Do you want me to take that out?”

 _'No!’_ Her brain yelled, but she just stayed silent not trusting her voice.

“Syd.” No response but he could see her chin quiver. “Sydney. If you want me gone, you’ll have to tell me to go.”

“You know I don’t want that,” she sniffled.

“Then why are you asking?” While he wanted to go with sadness as default, his brain decided that the anger was more pressing and led with it. “What more could I possibly do for you right now that I’m not doing already? Jesus, Syd, you have to _stop_ _giving up_.”

Now _she_ was mad, and her flashing brown eyes met his angry green glare. All she could send was a glare, however, and she knew she didn’t make much of an imposing figure at just over 100 pounds lying unmoving on her back in a comfortable bed. It wouldn’t stop her from fighting back, however.

Pushing with her right arm, the muscles shaky, she attempted to sit up. The left was useless as it was cinched to her midsection, but she managed to get enough purchase against the soft sheet to push her torso up at an angle and allow her hips to scoot back.

Pain flared up from her knee making her stop with a grimace, Michael stepping forward and reaching to help. He stopped at her sudden glare.

"Don't. I'm mad at you and I don't want your help," her order was a growl.

"Fine," he sighed angrily and crossed his arms over his chest, though he stayed at arms length just in case.

Through pushing with her exhausted right arm and inching backward with her hips, each inch setting off her knee, she made it upright enough against the headboard to feel as though she was actually in the fight. She went almost limp for a moment as she took several deep breaths trying to calm her pounding heart.

“When...did I _ever_ give up?”

This flared his anger and he kept his arms crossed defensively over his chest. “A year ago you dragged me to the warehouse and said you wanted to give up. Before Cole infiltrated SD-6 you said you were done and were going to tell Sloane you were quitting. In the room with Flynn, you-” he stopped, swallowing the end of that sentence as he dropped his arms to his sides. He broke eye contact as hers went from a flashing near-black to a wounded chocolate brown.

“I didn't give up, Vaughn, I died. You know, I didn't ask to be rescued. There was no reason for you to _not_ leave me there.”

She saw how much her words stung as he physically took a step back with anguish on his face and his eyes falling to the floor. He once again convinced himself to not walk through that door and leave her down here as he knew she had no way of getting back upstairs on her own.

The two had never felt so far apart. Fighting one another had always been a part of their connection, but this wasn't fighting with each other, it was fighting borne from frustration and residual anger over everything that had transpired outside of their control.

"Vaughn, I - I'm sorry. I don't want to fight, I don't. I'm sorry."

Michael sighed and “No, I’m sorry. I’m just...tired. I think I have four hours of sleep across the last three days, and the last thing _you_ need is for me to pick a fight.” He rubbed his fingers over his eyes as he tried to push down the welling of emotion.

“I picked the fight,” she whispered, weariness creeping in and making her feel heavy. “I’m sorry. I don’t want you to go, I just...I don’t know how to get you to want to stay. I lost control of everything, and I don’t know how to get it back.”

Vaughn moved to the edge of the bed and held out his hand, Sydney twining her fingers through his with a small squeeze. “I should be working with you on that instead of leaving you to do it on your own,” he admitted.

“We have a lot to figure out.”

At her simple yet loaded statement, Michael felt the weight behind those words. _They_ had a lot to figure out, but in all honesty, it was almost all on _him_. In his mind, at least. He desperately wanted to ask her a hundred things, almost all of them seeking to clarify taunts Flynn had shot at him during the three meetings he’d been forced to hold with the man. Stopping in to talk with Irina each time was for once a breath of fresh air, though there was tension there too, and he knew he’d have to have a serious conversation with her about his father at some point.

 _'One life-altering thing at a time.’_ It was all starting to pile up on his soul and petty arguments like these added rather than reduced the weight.

“I’m sorry,” he said softly as he brushed the back of her hand with his thumb. “Let me help you back upstairs, and we can keep talking,” he offered.

Sydney shook her head, backpedaling when she saw the surprised look on his face. “Please don’t judge after I complained, but I’m exhausted. Which is stupid because I just slept, but I am.”

Vaughn laughed and leaned forward to slide one arm behind her shoulders as the hand wrapped around hers stayed strong to pull her away from the headboard. Holding her upright he gently maneuvered her legs off the edge of the bed, mindful of the left where he gripped the outer metal edge of the brace. Once she was ready, which she confirmed with a nod, he pulled her to her feet.

The moment wasn’t lost on either of them and though the left arm was fastened to her middle in the sling, she forced the weak muscles of her right to lift and clutch the collar at the back of his neck as she buried her face in his throat. All Vaughn wanted to do was stand and hug her for the rest of the night. The lump of her left arm between them didn’t stop him from keeping a tight hold around her waist and back, and he pressed several small kisses to the top of her shoulder around the strap of the camisole and sling.

It was there that his eyes spotted two scars, healed punctures from Flynn’s knife, and while he tried to stay in the moment of finally being able to hold her after so long, he had to look away and tamp down the angry fire that flared in his belly. Luckily, her legs trembled a bit and her right arm had used the last of its energy to grip his shirt, and she lowered it as he reached for the wheelchair to slide her back into the seat.

“It’ll get better, Syd,” he promised and stood tall.

“Yeah,” she whispered but had seen the way his eyes weren’t meeting hers. They instead swept down her arms settling for a moment before moving again, and she knew he wasn’t able to unsee the scars Flynn had left on her skin with each one letting him relive everything, same as her each time her own gaze would spot one. “Could...you do me a favor?”

This snapped him out of whatever trance he’d been in, and he looked back up to her face seeing some pain but nothing else. She was compartmentalizing with him - or maybe for him, he wasn’t sure. Either way, he hated that fact. He’d spend the better part of 18 months earning her trust and now he felt like he’d lost it in less than a few weeks.

“Sure,” he said tightly.

“Could you grab some long-sleeved shirts from my dresser? It’s cold up in the medical room sometimes.”

“Of course.” He moved to the dresser and searched through a couple of drawers. Settling the soft cotton shirts onto her lap they quietly made their way to the elevator and back upstairs.

They both had apologized, but everything still felt wrong and neither had a clue how to fix things.

...

**Two Weeks Later**

Vaughn sat at the desk with a hand over his tired eyes, the open laptop and scattered files ignored as he leaned back in the chair with the other arm hanging down.

"You've been avoiding me." Her voice was quiet and non-threatening, but he jumped all the same as he thought he was alone with his oppressive thoughts. 

His heartbeat settled down and he sent a soft smile in her direction though it didn’t reach his eyes. She leaned against the doorframe of his room with her own arms hanging low leaving her stance open. 

Anyone else would have thought her relaxed, but he saw the tightness in her shoulders, the minute furrow on her brow, and the sheen of effort shadowed by a small amount of pain in her eyes. The ends of the long-sleeved shirt were bunched in her hands hiding her fingers from his sight and giving her fabric with which she could fidget.

“You’re not supposed to be this far out of bed,” he said with a gentle grumble, side-stepping her greeting intentionally.

Sydney was still willow thin, though she’d gained about four pounds between physical therapy and Francie's cooking since she’d left the medical ward almost around a week ago. She was wearing the bulky wrist brace, Michael figuring that the fingers and forearm must have been giving her serious pain for her to keep it on since she hated the thing. His gaze moved down and gave the leg brace a once-over, her pajama pants bunching from mid-thigh to mid-calf beneath the velcro straps. It didn’t keep the healing knee from bending, just giving it extra support so there weren’t any setbacks.

“Desperate times,” her explanation for why she was breaking the rules. Not only was she disobeying the doctor, but she wasn't supposed to leave the lower floor on account of her being “dead”. If anyone that wasn't in on the secret spotted her, it could get out to all the wrong people.

Vaughn hadn't meant to make her worry, nor did he want her to feel bad, but he needed more time. He just wasn’t ready.

"It's not you, Sydney. I promise it’s not. I needed a couple days to sort out my brain, that’s all." His voice was tired, but the softness that he reserved just for her was present.

"It’s been two weeks, Vaughn. Yeah, I...I thought you just needed to figure things out, but after a week you went to London for a meet, and three days later you went to Japan for the intel swap. After you got back the first time I see you is at a meeting and you snap at me and....leave. You left for two days without telling me." Sydney sighed and let the accusation land. It was also a pause so she could catch her breath.

"I'm not sure how this _isn't_ about me, Vaughn." He figured this was the moment where she would cross her arms over her stomach in classic Sydney defense posture, but they remained at her sides. She also didn't move from the doorframe, leaning against it heavily to take the weight off of her braced left leg.

She surprised him further by giving a slight negative shake of her head when he reached out a gentle hand beckoning her to take it and come in, perhaps to even close the door behind her so they could have privacy for the conversation he didn't want to have - a conversation he'd been avoiding. That surprised him, and she saw the emotion flit across his face in the dim lamplight.

She shrugged with her right shoulder, awkward against the wood frame, the left still sore from physical therapy earlier that day, "I don’t need you to make excuses, Vaughn, I need you to seriously consider if you really don’t want to take that out." Pushing off the frame she limped down the hallway, the ding of the elevator bouncing to his ears. His eyes stared at the empty space for several long minutes after her exit, looking but not seeing. He also didn’t rise and follow her like his heart was screaming at him to do. 

No. He stayed in that chair going over his reasons for avoiding her. As much as he hated to admit it, he _was_ avoiding **her**. Things felt awkward, conversations were stilted, and in the few moments they’d chanced at being alone, hardly any words were spoken deeper than small talk. 

Even though she was now free from the medical wing and had her own room away from prying eyes, mostly through the necessity to limit the number of people that knew she was alive, he’d never stayed. He chose for them long sleepless nights separated by a whole floor, which he knew was unfair.

Vaughn knew that almost everything he was doing was unfair, but he didn’t know how to get past the things that Flynn had said. The man in the holding cell _knew things_ he shouldn’t know; things about her that told him _almost_ everything while leaving out the subtlety of the truth.

His mind and soul had been whipped back and forth at break-neck speed over the last two and a half months, and nothing seemed to make sense any longer. The psychologist hadn’t helped when he’d asked the hard questions. She’d hit behind the phrase, _‘that’s her place to tell you’_ , which made him frustrated and snappy.

_'If none of this is something she could avoid, is any of it Sydney’s fault?’_

That was the hard question. How far back could he go for an answer? 

Did she get caught? Yes.

Did they know which mission exposed her? Not yet - Sloane was keeping that information close to the vest, the asshole.

Was it her fault or his?

Neither?

Should he feel guilty for what he got _her_ into, or should he be angry at her for being reckless and getting _herself_ into trouble?

Or was it neither?

What had Flynn done after the streams ended?

Everything circled back to **that one point**. 

The swirling questions kept him up at night and invaded every short conversation they attempted to have.

That, however, wasn’t what he desperately wanted to know. He had narrowed everything down one real question, but he was too afraid to ask. Instead, he’d let it eat him from the inside out because not really knowing was to him, more merciful than otherwise.

Yeah, he’d been avoiding her.

 _'Not_ **_really_ ** _her; the situation. If there wasn’t this damn shadow over everything between us, I’d be down there every waking moment.’_ His brain reminded him that it really _was_ just the conversation they were supposed to have that he was trying to avoid. Truthfully, he missed her terribly and these last two weeks had been a near eternity of loneliness.

Vaughn’s absence and the reason behind it were unfortunately and painfully obvious. After everything had come to a head, and for the first time in two and a half months, he’d gone home and slept in his own bed instead of staying in the JTF building. Even Weiss had glared when he’d figured it out, and if Weiss realized it, Sydney already knew.

Closing the lid on the laptop he rose with a harsh sigh from the uncomfortable office chair, his fingers at the lamp to kill the light when a deep voice made him jump with another surprise.

“I was wondering how long you were going to sit there,” Jack grumbled quietly.

“I think you gave me a damn heart attack!” 

“It wasn’t easy, but it was worth clearing up a lot of things we thought the other assumed,” the father offered, calling him out on having been M.I.A. for the last two days after the psychologist had hit them all with mandatory _talk about things with Sydney_ orders. He’d wanted to run just like Vaughn, though he had nowhere to go.

“I don’t want to talk about it at all, Jack. Can’t we just be happy it’s over and that she’s okay and that everything will be fine?” Michael finally vented his frustration.

Jack leaned his shoulder against the door in the same spot Sydney had been minutes earlier. “I don’t need to remind you that it’ll be good for her to hear things from your point of view, do I? There are hurdles here we all have to jump. This one makes things easier for _her_. You shouldn’t be avoiding this.”

Shame leaked into his soul. “I don't want to feel that hurt again, and I don't want to share it. She doesn’t deserve my shit on top of her own, Jack.”

The older man nodded. “What if it’s already there?”

Vaughn sighed. “I don’t know what to do about that.”

“Michael, what are you afraid she will tell you that you don’t already know?”

 _'How many times he raped her,'_ he thought.

“I don’t know,” he said aloud, his mind poking him with what he really wanted to ask over and over until it made him slightly queasy. 

“You’d better figure it out, son, or we’ll be having a different conversation.” It was and wasn’t a threat, but Vaughn knew exactly what the elder meant. _‘If you don’t fix things with my daughter, you’re out. She’ll end it before I will, but not much before.’_

With a push Jack left his spot and went back to his room, the door closing silently behind him. Peeking out the corridor was suddenly a mile long, much longer than Vaughn remembered, but he could see the elevator door at the end if he squinted. 

His heart pounded in his brain as he got closer and he was on autopilot pushing the button for the lowest floor. His stomach jerked as the elevator dropped, and it brought back the nauseous state with a vengeance. Once it stopped, shaking fingers entered the code and swiped the card allowing the doors to open. He fingered the keycard on his trek to the door on the right at the end of the hallway and hoped that she hadn’t locked him out. If the light flashed red after swiping the card in the access panel he was screwed for the night.

The light strobed green three times, the click of the disengaging lock echoing in the silence of the hallway, and Michael felt the cool metal of the handle in his palm as he twisted and pushed the heavy door open enough to slip through. Though it felt presumptuous, he hit the ‘lock’ button on the inside panel ensuring that anyone coming to see Sydney would get the flashing red light: the CIA’s answer to the ‘do not disturb’ door hanger.

“Syd?”

She didn’t answer. His eyes adjusted, some kind of light always on in her room. He spotted the source, the desk lamp pointed at the wall across from the bed. She told him one night when he reached to turn it off before leaving that the darkness mixed with the unfamiliarity in the room made it feel too much like she was back _there_ , so the light stayed on and Michael had gotten used to that fact.

She was laying on the comfortable bed above the blankets facing the ceiling, wide awake. Instead of making a path directly to her side, he grabbed the back of the office chair and rolled it to within a few feet before settling heavily onto the padded seat. He leaned forward to rest his forearms on his knees and folded his hands together. The body language wasn’t exactly open, but it wasn’t closed, and from her periphery she saw that he was making an effort.

_'Talking to me shouldn’t take this much effort.’_

Vaughn wanted to start the conversation just to get it over with, but he realized that it would be a disservice to the things that definitely needed to be said between them.

When he’d cautioned her against making rash decisions a few days ago, her fighting him not abnormal in their history, he’d hurt himself twice when saying, _“whatever got you caught was probably a rash decision - let’s not do that again.”_

The first was his heart slapping his brain the moment the words left his mouth; the second was the pain he felt when the tragic hurt hit her face. He should have felt it three times with her fist nailing him in the jaw, but instead, she’d limped quietly out of the conference room seeking solace behind the security door and leaving him to bear the glares of Jack, Will, and Kendall as they’d all been present for his blunder. 

The light had flashed red that night.

That wasn’t the only time he’d snapped in the last two weeks, but it had been the worst of the incidents. The very next day the psychologist challenged everyone that knew that Sydney Bristow was alive to have a one-on-one conversation about the time she’d spent in that room and the fact that they’d all watched. They had to air their experiences versus hers and figure out what was truth versus misunderstanding and assumption. She’d tacked on the word _mandatory_ when Michael had scoffed in refusal.

So, instead of being an adult and working through what was clearly a lot of pent up anger, pain, and hostility, he’d made ten excuses and spent two days away from the office in the hopes that everything would just go away.

It hadn’t. In fact...it had gotten worse.

“You want to know what my biggest fear and my only tether was while I sat in that chair?” Her quiet question broke his concentration.

 _'No.'_ He thought, though he just nodded, not trusting his voice to keep from saying exactly what he was thinking.

Her sigh was watery, “that you were watching.”

Vaughn didn't respond. Not because he didn’t want to, but because he had no idea what to say. She didn’t wait, however, and continued without needing his participation to have this conversation. Her voice was a strange monotone. There was emotion _behind_ her words, but not in how she spoke.

"After that first session, I thought it would be pretty easy. I figured I could buy you all the time you needed because when you found me, which I knew you would, I’d be able to walk out of that room with my chin up." She swallowed and Michael stared at the side of her face, his focus on the harsh shadow created by her cheekbone above the faint scar on her left cheek.

Every time he saw it the unbidden images of Flynn holding her face crowded into his mind. He wasn’t able to stop them and even now saw the Brit’s left hand pull her chin down to open her mouth, stretching the cheek as his other hand sunk the blade slowly into and through the thin skin. Her blood mixed with her tears and the wound leaked a red river down her jaw to drip onto her chest.

He averted his gaze to the floor before his anger marched him up to the holding wing and into Flynn’s cell where he longed day in and day out to beat the murderer to a pulp. He'd start a queue, of that he was sure.

“Tell me one honest thing, Vaughn.” Sydney kept her gaze on the ceiling but threw out her challenge after he stayed quiet at her admission. She could feel his focus, like two green lasers fixed on the side of her face, and she recalled all the times in the last few weeks that he’d broken eye contact when she'd caught him staring.

Michael wanted desperately to tell her that _she_ wasn’t the reason for his anger, sadness, or worry, but his mouth wasn’t keen on forming words at the moment. 

Sydney rolled her eyes. “Well, _I’ll_ be honest if all you want to do is listen.”

“I don’t want to do either. I just...I want to go back.” He surprised himself with the honesty of his statement.

She kept her voice low, though he saw a slight furl in her brow. “Back to what?”

“Back to before; back to the hotel or - or...or the cabin.”

“Well we can’t,” she grumbled, the first hint of emotion that affected her voice. “So now what? If we can’t go back, and you won't go forward, where do we go?”

“I don’t know, Sydney. I...I don’t know.”

She finally looked in his direction, his gaze moving up as their eyes met in the low light. A single tear dropped from the corner of her eye and dripped off the bridge of her nose as his threatened to spill free pooling in the lower lids.

“You waited so long for me to wake up, but you realize I’m not the same, everything’s different, and you hate looking at me.”

“No I don’t,” he said sharply, accentuating his point by forcing his look to stay with hers.

“It’s all you can think of, isn’t it? You see a scar and because of _him_ , you get to replay how I got it over and over again. While I get to _feel_ it...endlessly, you can’t unsee them, and I don’t know which is worse.”

He knew she was right but didn’t want to admit it. Yes - every single time he spotted a mark on her skin his brain reminded him of how the injury was obtained. Some he hadn’t been privy to the origin, like the faint one on her right eyebrow, but he’d seen the aftermath. “I’m not angry at _you_ , Sydney, I-”

“I can’t make them go away any faster. I...I try to at least cover them up but...you don’t look at me the same way you used to, and,” she swallowed, “it kills me that he took _that_ away from me along with almost everything else.”

It was Vaughn’s turn to look perplexed, but the realization hit him that she hadn’t worn a camisole or tank top once since she'd asked him to grab her long-sleeved shirts, and the short shorts she preferred to sleep in had been replaced with a pair of long, soft, cotton pajama pants, the bottoms dragging on the floor with each wobbly step she took. The long-sleeved shirts draped over her figure looking a whole size too large, and she always tugged the sleeves down to ball into her hands when he was nearby.

He’d thought it a nervous tick, but apparently she’d just been hiding her scarred fingers from his gaze.

“Sydney, I don’t-”

“Yes you do,” she interrupted, her head turning back to face up at the ceiling. It reminded him too much of when she slept for those long days and nights, still and prone with tubes draining fluids to and from her broken body.

“You have to get over it, Vaughn.”

This made him angry. “I have to get over watching you die?”

She flinched at the rage she heard behind those words. “I wanted you to leave me there. I didn’t want you to find me because I knew that everything would be different. The entirety of my _life_ would be different and...I didn’t want to deal with that much change."

"But if I made it out... **_you_ ** ,” she almost growled the word, her once emotionless voice now strangled by the tightness in the back of her throat, “ **_you_ ** were supposed to be the same. That’s not fair.”

“You didn’t want me to find you?” 

She scoffed that he was stuck at the top of her statement instead of paying attention to where she demanded his focus.

Sydney turned her head to face him, her watery eyes glinting in the low light. 

"Why did you watch?" Her voice was a sad whisper.

"You wanted me to leave you there?" He countered, his soft voice pained.

She looked back up to the ceiling and sighed. 

"Sydney...why didn't you want me to find you?"

“I know exactly what you want to know, and I know why it’s so hard for you to ask. But...you have to ask,” she answered, immediately diffusing his anger and changing the direction of the conversation. 

She attempted to sit up, though the tight muscles of her back protested with sharp resistance at the same time as her left arm gave out despite the brace. His hand cupped her elbow as he jumped in to help, her reaction to flinch and pull back slightly, and she cursed her sensitivity again.

“I’m sorry, I...let me help,” his voice was back to soft reserved love, though she could see confusion, sadness, and unresolved anger wrinkling his brow and pressing his lips into a thin line. 

Once she was seated on the edge of the bed, her right hand massaging her upper left arm at the aching stiffness still hiding in the joint, she settled her breathing down. She hated the fact that simply sitting up put her out of breath. Vaughn moved back to sit in the chair and though only a few feet separated them, it felt like a mile.

“You need to ask what happened after the camera turned off,” she ordered, brown boring into green as the hurt flashed and he broke eye contact.

Michael felt her words yank the scab off his heart and restart the bleeding he’d been trying to staunch. He had hoped that she would, at worst, prod at the wound, or opposite to that, try and heal it, but he wasn't getting away that easily.

He shook his head and stood, his body pushing him to flee from the conversation. “I...I don’t wanna know.”

“Yes you do,” she countered. “Ask me.”

Another shake accompanied a green glare as tears spilled over his lids trekking shiny tracks down his cheeks.

“I’m sorry, Sydney,” his voice was pinched and she could see that the facade that he’d been holding for over a month was finally beginning to crumble. She’d talked about it with Sarah, the psychologist encouraging her to poke and prod at him until he got honest with his feelings and how they were affecting her. She hadn’t had the guts until tonight.

“Why are you sorry? You didn't do any of that to me, Vaughn.”

“I just...I sat and watched. I tried,” he swallowed and began to pace, “I tried to not watch but...but that was worse because then I was...I was in my own head making up what he was doing and I,” shuddering breath, “so I watched so I’d know; so I’d know.”

“So you’d know what?”

“How he hurt you. So I c-could do it to him when I found him.” He continued moving back and forth, and she was sure he didn’t realize any of that was happening. “But that’s...that’s not what happened. I _didn’t_ find you, and I’m sorry.”

“You _did_ find me.”

“He _killed_ you,” he moaned, the pacing stopping as both hands gestured toward her with palms facing up, anguish on his face as more tears fell to cast darkened spots on his rumpled blue button-up shirt.

“I’m sitting right here,” she said softly.

This stopped his downward spiral and his arms fell limply to his sides. His head throbbed with a sudden headache as harsh emotion clogged his breath in his throat and put a pressure that hurt his teeth into the roof of his mouth, but he saw that she was right.

“Come here,” she asked and pointed to the floor in front of her, and he obeyed.

Vaughn knelt down and hung his head low as a muffled sob snuck out from behind his lips. He loosed a relieved sigh as the fingers of her right hand softly ran through his hair. The only sound was his sniffling, the back of his left hand wiping at his nose as his breaths came in sobbing pants while trying to get everything under control.

“Ask me, Michael. Just ask,” she whispered.

“Did he...” he couldn’t look up, his eyes squeezed shut terrified of what she’d say.

He didn’t know why he was so scared over this one fact. It’s not like he’d stop loving her, he just had to know.

"Did...did he-"

“No,” she interrupted, mercifully not requiring him to finish the sentence. Her hands cupped his jaw tilting his face upward and forcing him to meet her eyes. “ **No** ,” she repeated.

That’s what broke him. For whatever reason, the relief of that single word filled him with emotion at the same moment it was all sucked out, and he couldn’t stop everything stacked atop his soul from crashing all at once. He dimly felt her pull at his shoulders, so he scooted forward on sore knees between her legs and buried his face in the soft shirt over her abdomen as he cried.

Long minutes passed until he’d drained himself near limp, Sydney struggling with the weak muscles of her back, arms, and legs to continue holding his shaking frame.

“Hey,” she said softly, pulling back a bit and feeling for the first time his hands wrapped around and clutching the back of her shirt. “I...I can’t sit up any longer, I’m sorry.”

Vaughn nodded and rocked back onto his heels, his eyes swollen and face red. His hands delicately undid the velcro straps of the leg brace to slip it off for the night as hers undid the one around her forearm, tossing it onto the abandoned office chair.

Standing with a groan and leaning down to rub his sore knees, he reached down and slowly wrapped his arm around her, lifting up enough to get the blankets pulled down as Sydney clung to his shoulders.

Once the blankets were low at the end of the bed, he set her back down. "Do you want to change into something else?" His voice was raw, the back of his throat sore, and the occasional hiccup and sniffle broke through despite the fact that he was trying to take care of her.

She shook her head, her eyes taking in the slumped form waiting for her to tell him what to do next.

"You don't have to ask to stay," she whispered.

Michael breathed a sigh of relief as he quickly undressed to his undershirt and boxers before sliding in beside her and hauling the blankets over them.

The moment their bodies came together, the familiarity and comfort hit them and forced a relieved sigh from each chest.

“I’m sorry I stayed away. I was just...selfish.” His apology was whispered into her hair as she tucked herself into him with her nose against his throat.

He felt her head shake, “not selfish, just broken.”

**…**


	25. It Was Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [](https://www.flickr.com/photos/190971129@N06/50596168052/in/dateposted/)  
> 

“We are never going to get through this information if you keep distracting me,” Sydney said quietly from across the room as she looked closely at another piece of paper to read the tiny font. Sitting atop the bed, her right leg folded beneath her left propped on a pillow, there was an open file box beside her and she was attempting to sort through the papers one at a time in hopes that anything would be helpful. She was sure he wore a puzzled look and had a slight uptick to the corner of his mouth as he sat there assuming she hadn’t been paying attention to what he'd been doing.

"What?" He tossed her a grin but turned back to the laptop.

He’d shrugged off his jacket, that was all - but that was enough. Beneath said coat was a white button-up shirt cinched to his shoulders by his holster. A few moments before she’d called him out he’d tossed the tie to the desk and followed it all up with a stretch, the muscles under the shirt tightening and then loosening under the leather straps. Focusing her gaze back to the papers, she heard him shift position but kept her eyes on her work, trying to be impervious to his actions.

"How is your research going?” To anyone else, his question would have seemed casual, but the gravelly low tone shot a spark straight to her center.

"Vaughn, come on."

“What? I just asked a question.”

She chanced a look in his direction. He was sitting in the computer chair with one leg folded over the other at the ankle and his cheek propped on his palm staring at her with excited green eyes.

"Don't...don't we have to get through this intel before your meeting tomorrow?" 

His response was the shrug of a shoulder, and he spotted the familiar purple shine seeping into her eyes. A soft smile hit his lips as he rose and moved to the door. Anyone showing up would get the red flashing light for a little while, not that the door’s status had changed much during the last two days he’d had off.

Crossing the room with slow deliberate steps his hands removed the holster and pulled the tucked shirt from his waistband. Reaching the side of the bed she stalled him.

“Do not knock this stuff over,” she growled with a gesture to the stacks of paper surrounding her on the comfy bed.

Vaughn delicately moved the stacks to the floor, despite wanting to scatter them with a swing of his arm, before crawling over her on the bed. He pushed her back leaning in for a kiss. Her hands grabbed the front of his shirt in reaction and pulled him with her as her crossed legs instinctively hooked loosely over his hips.

“Was this morning not enough?” She asked against his lips and felt a smile.

“It’s never enough.”

Her tongue swept against his in response pulling a groan from his throat, and he dimly felt her fingers undoing the buttons of his shirt until her warm palms pressed against his bare chest. Propping himself on his right hand his left traced to her waist and began to lift her camisole, and Sydney sat up slowly making him tilt back and rest on his heels. Her top hit the floor and his hands left her body for a moment to shrug out of the button-up before coming back and running tickling lines down the middle of her spine keeping her upright against his chest.

She clung to him, one hand diving her fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck and starting a shiver to race down his spine. Their lips parted as he leaned down, intent on exploring her throat. Her other hand was winding a path with scraping fingernails down his twitching abs toward the bulge straining the zipper of his trousers, but she was taking her sweet time exploring every inch of jumping muscle leading down to his bellybutton.

The moment his lips and tongue touched the side of her neck his phone went off, an alarm set for some damn reason. He growled and tried to continue his exploration while reaching for the buzzing and chiming device on the nightstand, but it was just out of reach from where they were perched. Sydney realized the dilemma and tipped backward pulling him above her. He caught his weight on his right arm and felt her hands at his waistband beginning to work at his belt.

“Only internal calls can come through down here,” she whispered and peeked between them as her less than nimble fingers struggled with the belt, “don’t answer it if it could be a meeting.”

Michael chuckled and noticed that it was a calendar alarm. _Sloane - 4:30_ was in flashing black letters against the colorless background.

“Oh shit,” he palmed the device and killed the alarm, unlocking it to read the details. “My meeting with Sloane isn’t tomorrow, it’s today. It’s in fifteen damn minutes.”

He squeezed his eyes closed as her feathery chuckle from below blew cool air across the heated skin of his chest and throat. The phone clattered against the wood as he tossed it back to the nightstand, and he rocked back to sit on his calves and look down at the wonton and topless woman below. “It’s okay,” she promised with a dimpled smile.

He leaned in and pressed a kiss to her pouted lips before climbing off down and grabbing her camisole from its discarded spot on the floor. Handing it over he saw her upright and passing his shirt at the same time, and they traded a laugh as well as garments as they dressed. Willing his erection to go away he skipped the tie and slipped his arms into his coat, bundled his laptop into his briefcase, and hit the panel to unlock the door.

“Vaughn,” she called, the man turning quickly as she stood balancing on her right foot to keep weight off the left as the knee was sore from physical therapy a few hours earlier. In her hands were his wallet, phone, and keys retrieved from their spot forgotten on the nightstand for the last two days.

“I’ll be back,” he promised, his fingers brushing her palms reclaiming his personals as he leaned in for a quick kiss before disappearing with a jog down the hallway.

**...**

Vaughn sighed in frustration. “This tech is absolutely untraceable and undetectable.”

“According to whom?” Arvin challenged as he folded his hands together over his stomach. The young agent had his arms akimbo as the wrinkles on his forehead deepened with every second that the SD-6 director challenged his authority.

“Marshall Flinkman.”

“Well, his craftsmanship notwithstanding, _I_ don’t think it’s worth the risk. I’ll give you notes on the meeting when I return.”

“Yeah, and you’ll keep the valuable information locked inside your head. If you’re not willing to give us everything why are we still doing this? It’s been months when it should have been weeks. Do you still want to bring the Alliance down or are you just screwing with me?"

“Mister Vaughn, I am in far too deep to back out now. This is a meeting of the partners about a suspected mole within the hierarchy of the Alliance. The last thing I will consider is wearing a listening device in that room. I’ll see you when I get back if you have nothing further?”

The man lifted his briefcase and turned to leave, Vaughn's tight voice stopping him in his tracks. “You got Sydney _killed_ because of your loyalty to these people. You’re wasting valuable time that I could be spending on so many other things.”

Arvin turned quickly with a snarl on his lip, “you of all people shouldn’t be so cavalier with _risk_ , Agent Vaughn.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” 

Sloane nodded and decided internally that this conversation, likely long overdue, was happening. “You asked me months ago what tipped us off. What operation did _she_ screw up? Did _she_ give too much away? In which conversation did something _slip out_ ? The answer to each of these in order is nothing, no, and none. There wasn’t any single conversation _she_ had with me or anyone at SD-6 that gave up her status as a double agent. There wasn’t any mission with enough red flags to not be considered within the margin of error for her job. _She_ didn’t give anything away; it was **_you_ **.”

Vaughn froze as his bravado instantly deflated. “What?” As he fell back, Sloane took the opportunity to gain ground.

“Sydney was an exemplary agent, and we always knew she was going to do well in this industry. The fact that she will be remembered as a victim killed by terrorists on live television hurts my _soul_.” Sloane couldn’t hold back the emotion from his low, growling voice. “I’m not disavowing my responsibility, Agent Vaughn. I...didn’t do enough to protect her. Those failings are on me and me alone. Having said that, I wouldn’t have had the need to go to such extravagant depths and fail in my attempts if you...hadn’t...screwed up.”

Arvin reached into his briefcase to extract and toss a file with maybe a dozen pieces of paper inside to the table, a disc following and landing on top. “Here’s what you wanted so desperately to know months ago. I don’t like you, Mister Vaughn, and it’s not because you’re arrogant, or that you think you know best and don’t take criticism well, it’s because _you_ got her caught. I may have gotten her killed...but **_you_ ** were the catalyst."

Sloane was taken aback at the heartbreak and fresh sheen of tears in the usually fiery green eyes. For a moment, the director regretted how he was presenting the agent with the information as he’d all but forgotten that his new handler had been in a romantic relationship with the subject of their discussion. Placing himself in the shoes of a man being told that he was responsible for the murder of the person they loved, his wife Emily’s face filling his mind, he felt the spear in his heart.

“Could you...tell me?” The young man’s voice was a strangled whisper.

Sloane had felt a lot of things for Michael Vaughn these past few months. Anger at the young man for the rash decision that had led them all to this very moment; jealousy for the fact that he had access to Jack Bristow, one of Arvin’s oldest friends; a sliver of happiness at the fact that Sydney had found someone that so fiercely cared about her despite the short time they had been together. For the first time in their many meetings, however, Arvin finally felt sorry for the young man. 

When he spoke, his voice was softer. “It’s all there. Know that I sat on the information for months until someone from Security Section discovered it through a random search request and brought it to my attention. At that point, it was reported to the Alliance and I had to feign shock as they ran me through every gauntlet they could.” Sloane reached out and pat the torn young man on the arm before turning and leaving.

Vaughn stood staring into a dark corner for long minutes after Sloane left as turmoil roiled in his stomach. He’d had many a nightmare over the responsibility he may bear, but had all but quashed those dark thoughts under the assumption that Sloane would never actually tell him what mission or moment led to Sydney’s fall.

With stiff motions, his heart begging him to stop, he moved to the table and fell heavily into the metal chair. Another few minutes passed until he opened his briefcase and pulled out the laptop, his movement mechanical as he powered it up and lifted the disc into his hand. Staring at it for a moment before putting it into the tray, a bout of nausea hit him as the disc spun up with a whir and a folder popped open containing several video files labeled numerically. The date and times were included in the file name, though he couldn’t place any of them against his memory.

 _‘Sydney could,_ ’ his brain prodded, and in response, he double-clicked the first video.

Black and white security footage from the sublevel sections of SD-6 showed an empty concrete room with a cracked open door to the right middle of the screen.

The date and time were at the top left corner, and while he still lacked revelation over the significance, he remembered that room. Once he realized that, the date didn’t matter.

Sydney entered the frame from the left with quick but quiet steps toward the door that slowly opened on her from the outer hallway, and she dodged to the side waiting for an assailant to enter and catch them off guard. Vaughn moved in accordance with his training: weapon held out at attention and ready for anything.

He could still feel the strong grip as she caught both of his arms from her superior angle and flipped him over her hip with the torque. Both relying on muscle memory, they ended up facing one another with guns pointed at the head of their partner.

He remembered being so relieved to see her; so relieved that she was alive.

 **“What the** **_hell_ ** **are you doing here?!”** Her voice exclaimed and from the angle of the camera, he could see the shock and surprise written on every inch of her face. He also noticed that the tenseness in her shoulders dropped and she immediately let down her guard with a sudden exhale. Every motion exuded trust as she lowered the weapon immediately and turned to check the corners of the room and outer hallway from where he’d entered.

**“Dixon contacted us. What the hell’s going on?”**

**“Dixon contacted** **_you_ ** **?”**

**“Not directly; through Langley. Said SD-6 was under attack. Are you okay?”**

**“It’s true. There’s a team of six, maybe seven-”** the video ended abruptly.

Vaughn’s fingers trembled and he sniffled against a suddenly runny nose as tears coursed hot trails down his cheeks. He closed the file and opened the next in the series where a different camera picked them up in the hallway outside the room. They were in the middle of the screen and farther away from this one, but their voices could be heard well enough over his crappy laptop speakers.

**“They’ve got the latest military spec; they’re after something in the vault.”**

She took the lead as he covered her corners. He realized how perfectly they worked in tandem despite the chaos of him showing up where he shouldn’t and never having been in the field with each other. She should have yelled at him or tied him up; she should have done anything to maintain her cover, but it was easy to see that she, like him, assumed that the sublevels weren’t being monitored. Or at least that the security feed had been cut by the infiltrating team. His voice got louder in the video as they moved toward the camera.

**“I know. I took one out in the garage.”**

**“Russian accent?”**

He panted as they hurried and talked heading toward another turn that, to Vaughn, looked the same as all the others. **“Yeah. I was thinking K-Directorate.”**

**“I don’t think so. I don’t think they’d do something as wild as this.”**

**“Then who?”**

She stopped, the pair standing underneath and in plain view of the camera above their head to the left.

**“I don’t know. But right now...what do you know about deactivating C-4?”**

Michael slammed the lid of the laptop closed and let his head fall into his hands, the tears leaking from the corners of his tightly squeezed eyes as emotion clogged and burned the back of his throat. Harsh sobs pulled from his chest as his memory flashed every injury she took on Flynn's stream through his heart, each piercing and reopening wounds he thought he’d closed.

_'How can I go back?’_

**…**

Judy Barnett lifted her head at the quiet knock, surprise hitting her face as she saw a concerned Michael Vaughn.

"Vaughn, hello. What can I help you with? I was just about to leave for the day." She waved him in and spotted tears on his cheeks as he quickly and quietly closed the door behind him. "What's happened?"

"I was me." His voice was strangled. Barnett stood and moved from behind her desk as the distraught young agent fidgeted with body tense and weight shifting from foot to foot in the middle of her office.

"What was you?" Gesturing to the seat she saw him shake his head and hold out his hand, a disc in a clear case pinched tightly between his two fingers.

"This will," sniffle, "go on my record, but I don't care. Please don't let Weiss get in trouble for this, he...he was just...I asked him to cover for me." He attempted an explanation when she took the disc with confusion in her curious blue eyes.

“First, take a deep breath.” She didn’t move and waited for him to follow directions. The shaky inhale and watery exhale didn’t seem to make anything better, so she had him do it again. “Second, bring me up to speed. I can keep what you tell me off the record, you know that. Tell me what’s happened.”

Wiping angrily at his face, he collected himself. "Do you recall the Cole incident at SD-6?"

Her head shook when it didn’t ring any bells. 

"McKenas Cole was a freelance agent for SD-6, someone that thought they were working for the CIA. He was betrayed and began working for Derevko. He...infiltrated SD-6 with a team of five or six others looking for something Rambaldi-related in the vault."

"Was that when you put a team together with Agent Weiss in the parking garage of the Credit Dauphine building?" She listened with her eyes on the monitor and not the young man as she sat back at her desk to put the disc in the drive. 

"That's what we put in the report."

That caught her attention, and her blue eyes flickered up to his suddenly downward stare. "Was that false?"

"Yes and no," Michael winced and started pacing around the small space between the plush chairs. "I...I couldn't get clearance from Devlin to have a team go into SD-6 and see if Dixon's general message to Langley was valid, so I went myself."

Her eyebrows jutted above the frames of her glasses, Judy removing the optics and fixing an incredulous stare on the restless agent. Since no comment was forthcoming, she refocused her attention on the disc's file and clicked on the first video.

Vaughn could hear the sound over the desk speakers, though they were low, and he pinpointed the scuffle and heard their panting breaths as Sydney's voice cut through the quiet of the office: **"what the** **_hell_ ** **are you doing here?"**

"You went into SD-6?"

Michael nodded as his arms dropped to his sides and a fresh batch of tears coursed down his cheeks. The remainder of the video was stopped and forgotten as Barnett stood and stepped around the desk.

"I...it was me. I got her caught," he sobbed. "How...how can I go back to..." he stopped knowing he couldn’t say more. 

For once she didn't have any words. The only thing she could think to do until her brain cooperated was to pull him into a loose hug. His arms hung limply at his sides but his forehead hit her shoulder and he felt one of her hands cup the back of his head as the other ran soothing circles across his shoulder blades.

"Michael, you cannot take all of the blame. It's not fair. Who gave you that information?"

Through his sobs and sniffles, she heard, "Sloane."

Barnett couldn't resist the scoff that rose from her throat and pushed him back a bit to hold his face by his wet cheeks and force him to look into her gentle eyes. "He turned that video in to them. _He_ bears responsibility."

Vaughn minutely shook his head. "No, he...he said he," sniffle "held it back until," exhale "someone else discovered it."

"Until? That just means he sat on it until it was convenient for him. Vaughn, you are not solely responsible for this. Her cover being blown was only a matter of time. Sit down," she ordered and pushed his wobbly frame toward the second chair. Once he was seated she set the box of tissues in front of him on the coffee table before taking up her chair on the opposite side.

"We figured out who the mole was." His shock surprised her, and she realized Kendall hadn't told him. "It was Haladki. He worked for Sydney's mother, who I don't need to remind you was the person trying to expose Jack and Sydney in the first place using Will. This whole operation was closer to going belly-up than any of us realized."

Barnett wasn't prepared for the look of rage that flashed across the sad green eyes, and she interrupted him before he could go on a tirade. "Haladki disappeared some time back, we don't know how or where, but it's likely he knew his status as a double was blown. This was all after sharing the information on Sydney's double-agent status with who knows how many people. Sark knew and was working with the Alliance. It's possible that _he_ was the one that tipped them off to the footage in the first place."

Another flash of anger.

"I'm not telling you this to make you angry, I'm telling you this because a lot of mistakes have been made by more people than just **you** . The rest are failings on the _Agency's_ end to keep one of their assets safe. Your mistake was borne from care while ours was borne from neglect. _We_ bear the responsibility of everything that happened to Sydney, not you."

The words hung in the air, but he did feel better. While he couldn't tell her why his soul wasn't completely mended, he nodded and wiped at his nose and eyes with a tissue. 

"Thanks, Dr. Barnett."

She sent him a soft smile, though sensed it wasn't completely over. "Take a few days off, Vaughn, I'll make the request to Kendall official. Come back and see me next Tuesday and we can talk about this some more if you'd like." She moved to the computer to eject the disc. The plastic case snapped as she popped it back in and brought it to his side, holding it out for him to take.

Vaughn's motions were slow and heavy, the weight of everything on those videos still pushing on his shoulders.

"Go home and get some sleep. Do you want me to prescribe something that will help?"

He shook his head as one hand slid the disc into the pocket of his jacket. "Thanks," he muttered before turning and leaving, the blonde woman leaning against the edge of her desk staring at the open door for a few minutes lost in thought. 

The psychiatrist wasn’t sure if the agent had believed everything she’d said, and now that she was alone with her thoughts, she didn’t believe everything either. That footage was damning, and even if the Alliance had a whiff of suspected double behavior within SD-6, there wasn’t anything concrete they could have jumped on that the CIA knew. But this...that disc was concrete.

His face was clear enough for an I.D., and there was no way that Arvin Sloane didn’t know everything about Michael Vaughn the second that security footage was watched and scanned. She’d copied the videos to her computer and double-clicked the first, her eyes focusing on things she was trained to see.

Oddly enough, she spotted all of the clues of familiarity that Michael had. Sydney’s surprise wasn’t borne from confrontation, it was borne from the fact that this man was someone she knew that wasn’t supposed to be there. The look on her face screamed “wrong person, wrong place”. The moment she saw it was Vaughn, and vice versa, the two lowered their weapons, and the tenseness in their frames dissipated immediately. 

While Michael had been focused on _Sydney’s_ body language, Barnett focused on them both. Agent Bristow dropped her guard instantly. Her hands lowered the weapon, her shoulders relaxed, even the worry lines on her forehead disappeared. While the initial outburst was filled with shock, the rest of her words were calmer and softer, each syllable giving away familiarity and trust. Even if she had known there was a camera and needed to play it off, she would have failed.

Vaughn’s body language said the same, though she recognized that the tenseness in his jaw and the wrinkles on his forehead stayed in place. While Sydney was relieved that Vaughn wasn’t one of the five or six armed men infiltrating her office building, Michael was relieved that _she_ was okay. That relief was short-lived and was replaced with worry about what waited around the next corner. 

Every one of his actions over the next fifteen seconds screamed “bodyguard”. He didn’t relax his stance, though he did lower the gun. However, it stayed firmly between both of his hands ready to swing into action if they came across anyone else. He constantly looked forward and behind as Sydney looked dead ahead and took the lead. 

Barnett rewound the first video to when Sydney had entered the room before running into the other agent. She checked her angles, walked deliberately and quietly, and even looked back to make sure she wasn’t being followed. The moment Vaughn joined her crusade, and by the time they hit the hallway, she knew she could focus on the mission knowing that he had her back. Without any of that being discussed, they fell into step with one another taking up roles that she’d only seen in seasoned partners.

Judy sighed and shut down the computer, her face a mask of thought as she went over everything in her head. There was no doubt that Arvin Sloane was the man responsible for turning in this footage and putting Sydney Bristow in the crosshairs of the Alliance, but if Vaughn hadn’t broken protocol, something those two had excelled at, there wouldn’t have been footage in the first place. Not that she’d tell _him_ that. The SD-6 director was a perfect scapegoat and there wasn’t any chance of her using his name differently. 

She just hoped that Michael Vaughn would fall for it the next time he sat across from her chair.

**...**

The panel to the right of the door beeped and pulled her attention, Sydney looking over at the alarm clock and seeing that it was just after ten in the evening. She’d been leaning back against the headboard with her left leg propped up on a stack of pillows in pajamas with a book in her palms waiting for him to return. 

She removed her reading glasses and tossed the book aside, her fingers sweeping a tendril of hair behind her ear from the messy bun from which it had escaped as she sat up. Whatever Vaughn had been doing it had taken well over five hours. As he tentatively stepped into the room she knew something was amiss. Tentative wasn’t their speed these last few two weeks. 

His shoulders were slumped, his brow was furled, and his green eyes avoided her concerned look and fading smile.

"What's wrong?"

He didn't reply, merely closed the door behind him to stand just inside fidgeting with his hands in his pockets. He suddenly felt hot and shrugged out of his coat. Trying to buy time, he hung it on the back of the office chair though he still hadn't met her eyes prompting her to ask the question again.

"Don't close me out, Vaughn, tell me what's wrong."

Sydney's frown grew as he sighed, finally looking up to reveal a sheen of tears in his eyes.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly.

"For what?"

Another shuddering breath. "I got you compromised. Everything that happened to you, Syd - all of it - it was my fault."

Sydney scoffed much as Barnett had, but he interrupted before she could speak. "There were...cameras in the sub levels. Sloane gave me the video from when I went into SD-6 unauthorized."

"Vaughn, I compromised myself," she sighed, but he shook his head. "Come here." Pointing to the side of the bed she ordered him to sit, swinging her legs off the edge and waiting for him to join her.

The steps were slow and wary, but he obeyed all the same and sat with another heavy sigh. Sydney stood and limped over to the dresser across the room, slid open the lowest drawer, and reached in to grab a thin folder. Limping back, her mobility without the brace better than it had been a week ago when she’d graduated past the need to wear it constantly, she flopped back down and handed it over.

Vaughn hesitated. ‘ _What if she already knew? How could she have spent the last two weeks as if nothing was wrong? Did she know she’d been sleeping with the guy that almost got her killed?_ **_Did_ ** _get her killed_.’ Her voice pulled him from his thought spiral.

"Do you remember when I had to meet that SD-6 agent for the brain wave test?" He nodded and took the file but kept it closed in his hands. She put a soft smile on her face and leaned in to bump his shoulder with hers, "I failed that test."

His eyes jumped up, "you told me you passed!"

Sydney chuckled. "Technically I did; I had a perfect score. That...proved to Dreyer I was the mole because it was flawless. Not a single question he asked went above 30, even personal ones that were supposed to make me react emotionally for a baseline."

Michael looked back at the file and saw the corner of two pieces of paper sticking out from the top, but he kept it closed. Dreyer's test was before Cole infiltrated with his team. If she was right, the Alliance had known the truth for at least three to four months before acting on their knowledge.

He slowly lifted the top and looked down at a typed report transcribed from what seemed to be a phone conversation. This information came from one of her first tasks once she was released and after she’d been cleared by both medical and psychiatric doctors to begin working on things. She’d been given a laptop and dozens of recorded phone calls retrieved from Luxembourg that hadn’t yet been cataloged and told to write down any pertinent details. 

This read as a dry, factual, and straightforward conversation between Alliance Agent Karl Dreyer and Alliance Partner Alain Christophe.

_Dreyer: I don’t trust that Sloane has the best interest of the Alliance in mind, Alain._

_Alain: What makes you say that?_

_Dreyer: Sydney Bristow is an obvious mole and yet he does nothing about the evidence I’ve presented. He cares for that woman too much to see the facts._

_Alain: Do you have any evidence past a perfect test, Karl? I myself would be unlikely to remove one of our top agents simply because they performed well on a lie detector._

_Dreyer: Her answers were practiced which is why they were perfect. This isn’t something that someone can...naturally perfect. She never once tapped the emotional part of her brain, even on questions that would have done so. Someone trained her on that machine. She is the mole. Have I ever been wrong?_

_Alain: I’ll give you access to her file out of Sloane’s periphery. Do what research you must but do not waste our time. If this comes back as false, your job with us may become...tenuous._

The signature at the bottom read: “Transcribed by (ironically) SAB”, and he grinned. _‘A hell of a thing for the analysts to overlook, and a hell of a thing for_ **_her_ ** _to find,’_ he thought. The next page was a copy of a report typed by Karl Dreyer to the attention of Alain Christophe. It was much more damning than the phone call.

_Alain,_

_I’ve done what you asked and will cut to the chase by saying that I was correct: Sydney Bristow is a double agent. I’ve been compiling data from the last few months and did a direct comparison with her previous work. In so doing I have established a timeline. Do let me know if you need to see the evidence in person, I’m happy to arrange a meeting with you or any other partners. All I ask is that Arvin Sloane not be made aware quite yet that he created a safe-haven for this mole to work freely for months._

_Timeline:_

_From Agent Bristow’s start in 1994 through to October of 2001, her failure rate was one of the best of any Alliance cell. In 247 missions it sat at 4.5%._

_In September of 2001, Agent Bristow’s fiance discovered her occupation, and the threat was removed by Security Section. I have reason to believe, and evidence supporting these accusations, that in early October of 2001 Sydney Bristow became a double agent. Somewhere around October second or third._

_The following 18 months of missions saw her failure rate skyrocket to 62%._

_The results are quite obvious and the fact that Arvin Sloane rejected this information makes me bring this to you. I trust_ **_you_ ** _to do the right thing and have Sydney Bristow removed as quickly as possible._

The name was signed underneath in a barely legible scrawl, and Vaughn quickly flipped to the next page hoping that he would find exactly what he found: a reply from Alain Christophe.

_Mr. Dreyer,_

_It seems you are indeed good at what you do. My sincerest apologies for doubting your work. I believe we have been given an opportunity and can use this to our advantage. If the agent holds something back that the Alliance is desperate to obtain, we will fix the problem. For now, I will coordinate with others on monitoring Agent Bristow and gathering intelligence about the organization with which she is currently aligned._

_Thank you for bringing this to my attention._

It wasn’t him. It hadn’t been his fault. Sure, if they had ignored any of Dreyer’s information as Sloane had he was the only one to blame, but this was the balm his soul needed at the moment. His eyes glanced over the first letter again as a smile crooked the side of his mouth.

“Only you could get caught by being _too_ perfect.”

She blushed, “and only you could think you’d doomed me by coming to my rescue.”

Vaughn tossed the folder to the floor and brought his free hand up to cup her cheek, pulling her in for a soft kiss. His tongue flicked against her pouted lower lip as he pressed his forehead against hers. “I think we deserve each other,” he whispered. Her nose bumped his as she nodded a reply.

"Help me up," she asked quietly seeing the curious frown hit his face. He stood and followed her lead, however.

"I don't know about you, but I could use a shower."

Her suggestion perked him up and it was his turn to nod in answer. The pair moved toward the bathroom, Vaughn's hands at her hips letting her set the pace on her sore leg. Once the water was on and steaming against the floor of the glass cube, the tendrils climbing up and leaking over the top, Sydney’s hands set out again to undo the buttons of his shirt as his fingers tickled the skin of her lower back in swirling patterns beneath her cami.

She wore a soft smile as the button-up slipped from his shoulders, and she tossed toward the hamper in the corner. He lifted her top and threw it in the same direction, neither looking nor interested if the clothing made it into the receptacle. Tipping her chin up with the side of his pointer finger he lowered his mouth to hers in a soft slow kiss, his tongue dancing against hers as his hands slid down to her waist to play with the elastic band of the comfortable cotton pants.

Sydney’s fingers were at his belt, the jingle of the metal echoing in the tiled bathroom despite the running shower dulling all sound. The tightness in his trousers lessened as the belt loosened, and as their lips parted she gently nipped at his lower as her hand felt the straining bulge behind the zipper.

Vaughn leaned his head down to place a suctioning kiss against her shoulder as he felt each tooth of the zipper release as she slowly slid it down, the button following. Wiggling his hips, the pants hit the floor. Sliding his hooked fingers around the edge of the waistband, he found the tied string cinching them below her navel. His mouth moved closer to the crook of her neck sprinkling kisses and nips against her shoulder as he dipped a finger inside her bellybutton. 

An airy laugh left her lips and she tilted her head to press her cheek against his temple, Vaughn lifting his legs and stepping out of the pooled fabric just after her pajamas hit the floor. Smooth skin greeted his hands as he wrapped them around her hips, a groan bubbling from his chest.

“No underwear, huh?”

Sydney shrugged, “less to take off for when you got back.”

His laugh vibrated against her chest as he held her close to keep her from losing balance, one foot kicking the pants to the side. She turned to open the shower door and he finished undressing. Steam enveloped her, Sydney stepping into the water with a contented sigh. She reached out a hand and beckoned him into the enclosed square, his fingers tightening around hers as he closed the door behind them with a clank.

She kept her head from going under completely as she hadn’t yet undone the bun and made room for him beneath the wide showerhead. She had no regrets from asking for the shower to be upgraded, the construction approved by Kendall as Vaughn, her father, Will, and Weiss had donned tool belts and redid not only the shower but the whole bathroom. 

The ledge they’d built into one of the two tiled wall sides was perfect for sitting and allowed her some freedom while she was healing to shower on her own and not risk a slip or fall. A second showerhead was attached to a toggle, the long hose allowing for her to sit and still wash her hair.

Vaughn had used it on her shortly after installation during one of their previous showers, and Sydney was insanely happy that it had been added during construction - also Michael’s idea.

She could still see the tenseness in his shoulders, the wrinkles on his forehead never completely going away, so she pulled him under the stream and told him to wet his hair. Obeying with a smile, he kept one hand at the slope of her backside just behind her hip and tilted his head back to let the hot water soak his hair. A tug on his arm told him to move, Sydney pushing him to sit on the chilled ledge. A shiver ran down his spine from the temperature difference sitting on the tile, though it felt good against his skin, and her quiet voice ordered him to close his eyes, a command he followed. 

The opening snap of a bottle lid made him smile and she squeezed some into her palm before rubbing her hands together and stepping in between his legs. A masculine scent filled their nostrils and he recognized his shampoo. The muffled thud of the bottle being set down hit his ear, and the feeling of her fingers rubbing against his scalp was all heightened since his eyes were closed.

He let himself be lulled by her ministrations as his fingers swirled patterns against her thighs, and he kept his eyes closed when she stepped away and switched on the secondary showerhead. Tilting his head back at her instruction, the warm water washed away the suds and she leaned against him to make sure it was all gone, Michael humming at the feeling of her wet skin against his.

Finishing, she turned it off and hung it out of the way, turning back to set her hands against his shoulders. His arms wrapped around her waist and pulled her close to bury his nose between her breasts and pepper small kisses against the soft left peak. He trailed the inner side until he got to the perky bud of her nipple, his tongue swirling slowly before drawing it into his mouth.

A mewl left her lips and she felt his right hand slide north to skim her ribcage. It stopped for a moment at the slightly puckered scar between the lowest two ribs, his finger brushing it reverently before moving inward to cup her breast and rub his thumb across the neglected bud opposite the one in his mouth. Her fingertips kneaded the tense muscles between his shoulder and neck as he released the nipple and opened his eyes, his head lolling back to rest against the tile as he fixed her with dark green eyes. 

She sent him a sweet smile and leaned to down kiss him with pouted lips before pressing her forehead against his and letting the moment hang in the steam. With a contented sigh, he set his hands to her hips and pushed her carefully back before he stood and wrapped his arms around behind her. Tilting his head down his mouth slanted across hers as their tongues dueled, and Sydney could feel him jutting up against the flat of her stomach. 

She reached up to tilt the showerhead down, the angle hitting their stomachs and hips, and as the hand came back she dragged her fingernails across his chest, down his stomach, and wrapped the fingers around his hardness. He groaned into her mouth, their lips breaking with a smack, and she smiled at his reaction while sweeping her thumb across the sensitive head on each slow upstroke.

Vaughn’s mouth redirected to the angle of her jaw before lightly suctioning the column of her throat as his own hand joined the party from it’s squeezing spot at her hip. It brushed across her lower stomach toward the juncture of her thighs. Her teeth bit into his shoulder as his hand cupped her gently, his thumb lightly rubbing her swollen nubbin as another finger teased at her wet opening. They teased each other for a few moments, each taking pleasure from the knowledgeable hands of their partner.

Sydney’s free hand moved up and grasped the back of his neck to pull him down and meet her lips, their tongues moving together and matching their hands. With a small squeeze she released him and set her palm against his chest as they broke for air, Michael moving his mouth back to her shoulder as his hand returned to her hip.

His heart was a fast steady beat, Sydney feeling him turn her slowly, his mouth lifting to the opposite side and then behind to the top of her shoulder blade as he pulled her back flush against his chest.

“You should prop your leg up to keep the pressure off your knee,” he said softly, one hand circling around and flattening over her stomach just under her breasts to hold her against him as the other gently gripped the right side of her waist. She nodded and set the foot on the ledge knowing he wouldn’t let her slip.

The hand at her side moved to his shaft and he pressed several small kisses to the back of her shoulder as he directed the tip toward her velvet opening. Their shared moans filled the enclosed space as he slowly slid into her warmth, stilling once his stomach rested against her backside. His left hand was firmly against her stomach with his thumb between her breasts as he kept her upright. Pulling back and slowly thrusting with his hips, her fingers clutching his, Vaughn kept the pace slow. The water was beginning to cool, however, and he knew he shouldn’t let her freeze no matter how good it felt.

Freezing was the last thing on her mind, the cooling water a balm to her overheated skin. At this angle, and with his pace, she knew she was close to her first orgasm. He knew it too, so he continued moving gently and fully in and out, the tightening of her channel and the higher pitch to her sounds made him smile and tuck his nose against the back of her neck, loose wet tendrils of hair fallen from the updo against his lips as he kissed her shoulder. The hand at her hip skimmed down and forward to swirl a circle around her sensitive clit.

She clutched his arm around her middle and tumbled off the cliff, her sweet moan hitting his ear as her head fell back to his shoulder and her body tightened. The clinging hand wound her fingers through his that was holding her up as the other pressed fingertips against the wall before them, his joining as the tile cooled his palm and tilted their bodies forward.

She wanted to see how many times he could make her tumble off the cliff again and again but knew they’d run out of hot water long before she would be content. Besides, his gravelly groan and the tenseness in his arm gave away the fact that he was close. With her tilting slightly forward it allowed him a better angle to thrust as she held most of her weight against her hand at the wall. He took the hint.

Long, faster thrusts made high and low-pitched moans echo around the cube walls, the lukewarm water sluicing in rivulets down her back and his stomach adding to the sensations. The temperature was a godsend as he panted and looked down for a moment to watch himself slide in and out a few times. Feeling the tingle in his lower stomach he rearranged his footing and moved the hand against the wall back to her hip so he could gently pull her back to meet his hips, bringing them upright. 

Sydney lowered her left leg from the ledge with just the toes touching the floor so that her right still bore the weight. Letting go of the wall she sent one hand back behind his head to clutch his neck as the other clung to the arm still holding tight against her abdomen. She tipped her head back to his shoulder as the familiar burning fire in her center began to swirl upward.

She came just before he did, her spasming channel pushing him over the edge as he kissed and bit the back of her shoulder, her fingernails digging into his forearm. Thrusting until he was spent he kept her in his arms and off of her leg. Panting together as the water left lukewarm and descended to cool bordering on cold, both found it refreshing. He slipped from her warmth backing up a step as his eyes spotted the red love bite he’d left just above her shoulder blade. 

Rubbing it with his thumb, “I bit your shoulder,” he said in a chuckling baritone echo, his thumb running across and feeling the little indents of his teeth, though he knew the impressions would quickly fade.

“I’m fairly sure I drew blood with at least one fingernail,” she responded with a sultry laugh, one hand reaching over and cranking the temperature to maximum. It was enough for them to finish up with a rinse before shutting it off and opening the door.

Vaughn sat her on the stool in front of the mirror and toweled her off, the soft terry cloth he’d wrapped around his waist tickling his calves. His lips followed the towel and she sat with eyes closed wearing a soft smile and basking in the attention as well as the afterglow. Once she was dry he lifted her into his arms and carried her into the bedroom.

“Pajamas?”

Sydney shook her head and watched from her tucked-in spot with a contented gaze as Vaughn discarded the towel and climbed in next to her. Facing one another on their sides they shared a long content stare. His hand cupped her cheek for a moment, thumb stroking her cheekbone as his other fingers tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear, and a smile broke out on his lips.

“What?” Her voice was a tired whisper, but nights like these made everything she’d been through worth it so she’d decided a while ago to try and stay in these moments as long as possible.

“I wanna marry you,” he said quietly. 

“What? When?”

Vaughn shrugged. “Who cares; tomorrow?”

Butterflies danced in her stomach, but her smile dropped as her brain reminded her of their situation. “I don’t think we can.”

He frowned. “Who says?”

“I don’t exist, Vaughn. I mean...I don’t think you can marry someone with a death certificate.”

Michael scoffed. “With the power some people have here, it wouldn’t be hard to get something written up. Everyone that matters is here and could be with us anyway, Syd. Why not?”

“You’re serious,” she squeaked, surprise elevating the pitch. “What about your mom?”

“So we get married again when it’s over. Why are you fighting me on this? Do...do you not want to?”

Sydney sighed and rolled to her back, her stare looking up at the ceiling as she sorted her thoughts. The lamp in the corner gave some ambient light, and she focused on it while choosing her words carefully and turning back to her side.

Her pointer finger lovingly swept across the dimple on his chin as she spoke. “I don’t want you to have to live in a bunker. We have no idea how long this is going to take.”

Michael caught her hand and pressed a kiss to the back of her fingers. “I think you underestimate how badly I want to call you my wife.”

“Michael,” she exhaled a laugh and shook her head, though a smile was peeking behind her frown. 

He grinned, “you only call me Michael if you’re about to give in to something I want.”

She shook her head slightly and met his eyes, “or during good sex.”

“Or during good sex,” he laughed and tucked her hand he was holding under his head, cradling it between his palm and cheek before pressing a kiss to her wrist. “Will you marry me?”

 _'Why are you listening to_ **_Bristow Brain_ ** _right now? Stop thinking that everything will go wrong. Life isn’t perfect right now, but stop being an idiot and take the good when it’s offered.’_

She responded with a sweet sigh and a dimpled smile, “yeah,” she whispered.

“Yeah?” His beaming smile pulled an airy laugh from her chest.

“Yeah,” she said again, their lips meeting in the middle. His tongue swept against hers and a soft moan bubbled up from her chest, Michael pulling away and pushing her to her back perching above her.

Mindful of her left leg she looped it over his hip as he caught her pouted lips once more. “Good call on no pajamas,” he mumbled against her mouth, Sydney chuckling between kisses as her hands dove into his still-wet hair.

_'Take the good when it’s offered.’_

**...**


	26. Server 47

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [](https://www.flickr.com/photos/190971129@N06/50596060241/in/dateposted/)  
> 

A/N: I found an amazing website that has transcripts of all Alias episodes that’s really been a help! Also, Amazon Prime just added Alias to stream! Anyone else power-watching like crazy? Anywho, thanks for waiting! I hope you’re all still here with me, and as happy and healthy as 2020 can keep you.

**Part 26**

Sydney leaned against the headboard, the blanket over her lap covered with scattered files and papers. Tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, her finger bumped her glasses making her adjust them back over her nose as she flipped the packet at the staple with a sigh.

"You've been at it for three hours, Syd. You should get some sleep," Vaughn mumbled nearly asleep beside her.

A grin broke loose from her concentration as she peeked down to see his eyes closed and a hand tucked beneath his cheek. He looked serene and she admitted to herself that it was probably a better idea to curl up with him and sleep instead of reading another useless Alliance document. Leaning over, she pressed a soft kiss to his temple.

"Yeah. I'll finish this one and be done."

Michael let out a sleepy chuckle. "I think you said that three folders ago."

Her response was to turn the last page and blink her bleary eyes from behind the reading glasses. The last page was a copy of an email between Alain Christophe and two other Alliance partners, and a frown furled her brow as she read the details.

 _After engine trouble and a delayed stop in Spain, the jet is once again airborne. To be safe, the code to access 47 has cycled:_ **_SA234564SA_ ** _. Edward, please take a look at the files labeled Kabir - I believe it’s right up your alley._

The email was dated three days ago. “Code to access 47; code for 47,” she whispered repeatedly and set the pages down while simultaneously sitting up and reaching for a folder she’d tossed atop her shins an hour earlier. “Code for 47,” she repeated, Michael groaning.

“Syd, you’re killin’ me,” he groaned and lifted his head to peek behind her at the bedside alarm clock. The red numbers showed it was a little after two in the morning, and he flopped back down to bury his face in the soft pillow.

“Code to access 47. Does - does that mean anything to you? What’s...what’s 47?” She ignored his complaint and began to reexamine the files on the bed. Gathering it all into a pile with the stapled pages on top, she swung her legs over the edge and stood with a wince, flexing her stiff knee.

A slight limp hampered her movement, but she made her way to the desk and pulled the lid off another box with one hand while turning the lamp to point from the wall onto the desk. Vaughn flopped to his back with a grumble before sitting up, scooting back until he was propped against the headboard in the same position she’d previously been resting.

“No. Code to access 47 doesn’t mean anything to me.”

Sydney nodded and continued looking, her hands flipping through pages until she found a file she had seen a few days earlier. It was an email between Arvin Sloane and Anthony Geiger dated a month ago, but the information was eerily similar to what she had just stumbled across.

 _I have added several files to the SD-12 folder on server 47. These should be what you were looking for. WRT the directory, it can also be found in the server’s hidden files accessible with the weekly cycling code. Access this week is_ **_AH_ ** _, though I likely don’t need to remind you._

Setting that page with the others she'd found, she rifled through the box for more. A transcript of a phone conversation between Alain and Edward Pool four months ago. When she’d originally heard the conversation about them planning to abduct her, she found it funny that she was yet again the one to uncover a piece of intel about her blown cover. This time, however, she realized that she’d missed a glaring clue.

_Alain: Good morning, Edward. I have something I need from you._

_Edward: I’m always of service, Alain._

_Alain: Flynn has discovered the SD-6 mole. Fortunately for us, she’s in London at the moment._

_Edward: How can I help? (shuffling papers in the background)_

_Alain: Have three of your best agents intercept at the airport tomorrow morning at 0930. The C.I.A. bonafides, cover story, and Agent Bristow’s psychological profile have been uploaded to the server for your access. Analysis indicates that she will be unlikely to put up a fight in a crowded place, but if she does, the best subdue methods would be to aim for civilians. Her weakness is the threat to innocent life, and we shall take full advantage of that._

At the time, she’d thought nothing of it and filed it with others where her work had been discussed. If anything, it boosted her confidence that so many Alliance higher-ups had panicked conversations about her and her father’s assignments.

Digging through, she found three more documents referencing 47, or server, or even server 47.

“What did you find?” Vaughn pulled her back to the present and she realized she’d been leaning against the desk on her right palm, the left clutching half a dozen papers as her eyes stared blankly ahead at the powered-down computer monitor.

“There are 47 servers.”

Michael frowned. “No, there are 46 servers. Every piece of intelligence we have is from those 46 servers.” Deciding against sleep, not that she was going to let that happen anyway, he rose from the bed and pulled pajamas up over his boxers.

“I’ll bet that every piece of intelligence Sloane has been giving us has been from Server 47. That’s why it runs the gamut. It,” she paused as realization hit her face, “there’s a hidden Alliance server.”

“What?” He made his way to her side and reached for the papers she was clutching. Skimming, he spotted several of the references she’d found for the server name and number. “What...why would Sloane keep us in the dark on this?”

Sydney scoffed. “Because he’s not finished with his endgame. If he doesn’t know that we know this, we can take him down along with everything else.”

Michael shook his head. “We have an agreement with him. The deal the agency wrote guarantees witness protection once the Alliance is brought down. He’s going to a government paid-for house on some beach in the tropics.” He couldn’t hide the growl in his voice as he flipped through the other documents Sydney had uncovered.

“Yeah, well, so will we,” she groused, pulling a grin from him.

“Okay, let’s keep looking. We can take it to Jack and Kendall in the morning,” he grabbed a full folder from the box before moving back to the bed.

“This...this could be it, huh?” He looked back over and saw the watery hope in her eyes.

With a wink and a grin, he opened the file.

**…**

“Sir, as soon as the Alliance realizes that this information was compromised, it won’t be valid,” Vaughn argued as the four of them stood the next morning in the conference room.

Jack was still pouring over the documents the two had linked together the night before, and Kendal was standing with his arms crossed over his chest wearing a hard cynical look. 

“We don’t know when this code cycles; it may have already. If we act on this information and it’s wrong, they’ll know someone has access to their hidden server. We don’t get two chances at a global takedown, so let’s not rush through this.”

Sydney didn’t want to sound desperate, but they hadn’t been this close to the silver bullet before. "Isn't it worth the risk?”

Kendall sighed, “Miss. Bristow, I know you want to get out of this basement, but if we do this wrong it’ll burn Sloane as an asset and dismantle everything we’ve been preparing for the last five and a half months.”

“Then he’ll know what it feels like,” she clapped back with fire in her eyes. Leaning over the table she stuck a pointed finger into the stack of papers. “This is the best lead we’ve had in months. If this week goes by and we don’t act, who knows how many weeks it’ll be before he gives us the current code.”

“Are we all forgetting the hundreds of pounds of C-4 in the sub-basements of SD-6 and probably every other SD cell? We can’t risk that without knowing when the code cycles.”

Sydney scoffed and inhaled to fire back, Jack interrupting from the table. “The answer’s in the document.” Once his eyes looked up, he saw that everyone had stopped and was waiting impatiently for his input.

“The current code is listed here as of four days ago. We should be able to match it in the SD-6 system.”

Vaughn laughed, “it’s not like you can head over there and verify. We need to get Sloane to give us the current code.”

Kendall nodded while Jack shook his head. “He hasn’t mentioned where this has been coming from for a reason. Maybe it’s to see if we’ll figure it out, maybe it’s to buy himself time to finish his plans, either way, we shouldn’t tip our hand.”

Kendall looked at his watch. “If we can verify this, I could go to Langley about raiding Alliance facilities.”

“ _How_ are you going to verify the intel?” Sydney’s question was hard to answer, and the silence that followed made her sigh and lean on the table. 

Vaughn chimed in after a moment of thought, “directors - partners - have access to this information. Is there...another person we could get this from?”

Kendall shook his head. “We’re not going to kidnap and interrogate an Alliance partner if that’s what you’re suggesting.”

The room fell silent as the four tried to sort their thoughts. Vaughn looked to his watch and sighed, “I have to meet Sloane in an hour. Am I asking him about this code or not?”

The answer from both senior officers was a negative shake of the head, and Sydney quickly left the room. With shoulders slumped, Michael tossed the papers he’d had in his hand to the table and followed her to the bedroom. Closing the door behind them he could hear the shaking anger behind her panting breaths and was sorting through what to say when she spoke.

“Nothing in my life...is real right now.”

Michael kept his distance despite wanting to rush forward and pull her into a comforting hug. “Just because we aren’t raiding them tonight doesn’t mean it won’t happen soon, Sydney. What we’re doing is still real.”

Spinning to face him, “I don’t even _exist_ , Vaughn. Our _marriage_ isn't real beyond this basement, and the _one thing_ I can do to fix it; the _one thing_ that will make it **all** go back to normal has to wait. I am **tired** of waiting.”

Her anger dissipated and was back-filled by sadness as she crossed her arms defensively over her stomach, tears falling down her cheeks. “I don’t want to do this anymore.”

Vaughn reached out to clasp her elbows and pull her against his chest. She didn’t return the hug, but he felt her lean into him as she tucked her forehead against his throat.

“I’ll see what I can get from Sloane without giving it all away. This is the last thing we have to do, Syd. Once this is done, all the other plans fall into place,” he paused for a moment, “and we can get a house that doesn’t have a basement.”

She let out a strangled laugh against the collar of his shirt and sniffled before pulling back. “You go meet with the devil and I’ll...I’ll keep working here.”

Michael cupped her cheek, his face a soft smile with warm green eyes. “Take a break. Have Francie come down and do a day of movies and cooking and whatever else will take your mind off things.”

While she felt the crippling need to hurry and get enough information for Kendall and her father to set up an operation, she also felt the want to toss everything in the air, lock the door, and hide under a blanket with a tub of coffee ice cream. His idea wasn’t a bad one.

“That does sound nice.”

“Yeah?”

She sniffled and nodded in response, Vaughn leaning in to press a kiss to her lips. “You do that and let me focus on this for a bit. Trust that I want to get out of here as much as you do, okay?”

“I know you do,” she whispered.

Vaughn left, though before the door closed he stuck his head back in, “beach houses can’t have basements. Just...throwing that out there.”

**…**

Jack sighed and squinted behind his glasses into the bright computer screen to read the tiny scanned font. A loud thump against his door made him jump, his heart leaping with a start against his ribs, and he heard another muffled thud followed by a low curse.

Stalking to the door he yanked it open to see Vaughn on his knees amidst a pile of papers and folders scattered in the hallway due to the weak and now torn side of a file box. “Sorry, Jack, I was just bringing this for you to look at and the whole damn thing fell apart.”

“I think you gave me a heart attack,” he growled with a smirk and leaned down to help. Though everything was _mostly_ where it started, there was enough now out of place that Michael would spend a good long while reorganizing everything.

Once it was piled up, Jack retrieving an empty box, they moved inside and Vaughn hurriedly shut the door behind him, a tremor of excitement in his voice. “This is what Sloane gave me today.”

Realizing that he’d not actually looked at any one piece of intelligence close enough to discern major or even minor details while cleaning the mess up, the senior agent reached back in and pulled out a file, flipping it open. His eyes went wide as he read, Michael nodding and beginning to pace.

Jack started, “Is this-” Vaughn interrupted.

“Yes.”

“I mean is it all-”

“Yes.”

“All of it?”

Michael nodded and held out a file that had been separated from the rest. Jack took it and, with shaking hands, opened the top and flinched at the contents. The first page was a bold header that read: **SYDNEY BRISTOW - AGENT, SD-6** , all covered by a big red stamp that said **ELIMINATED**. The photo was a screenshot of her in the chair before the camera feed went down and the rescue team had entered. Even after seeing her this morning, he felt that loss come roaring back.

Quickly flipping to the next page, a packet of emails stapled together, Jack read the top seeing it start with a message from Alain Christophe to Flynn titled _Job Opening_. Every piece of the conversation was there, from request to acceptance to updates, finalized by that grisly piece of evidence on the first page. Even the bank account information from Alain to Flynn was included, and Jack’s eyes moved back and forth between the single file in his hand to the box where more were waiting.

“This...this is…”

Vaughn pressed a pointed finger into the lid, “this is physical evidence for _every_ _single_ assassination Flynn did for the Alliance. This is enough for the F.B.I. to put him away for hundreds of lifetimes.”

“Good work.”

“I want to tell Sydney.”

“No,” the father barked, upset that the young man was bringing it up again.

“Jack, she deserves to know that we caught him. You think I don’t see her searching through the information and trying to find a location? The one thing she’s entitled to, and she hasn’t even **asked**. She genuinely thinks that we all let her killer get away.”

The father sighed. “Nothing good can come of her knowing he’s in our custody, not to mention sitting in a cell beside her mother. Do you think anyone would stop her from going up and slitting his throat?”

“She’s more rational than that and you know it.”

“Vaughn,” Jack sighed. “What good would it do?”

“How about give her some closure?”

The elder balked as he rose and tossed the file onto the top of the pile, “you actually think we can ask Kendall for permission to torture a prisoner?”

Vaughn’s laugh was harsh. “Jesus, Jack, No! I want to make a proposal from this office to the F.B.I.”

Wide-eyed, Jack pushed, “and would that proposal be?”

“That the trial is streamed live, worldwide.”

**…**

The entire floor smelled like a pastry shop, and feminine laughter made him smile the moment he lugged the heavy box of paperwork off the elevator. Peeking into the rec room, the floor was littered with blankets and pillows, the Breakfast Club was playing, and the two ladies were in pajamas in the middle of it all. The coffee table was off to the side and covered with cookies, cake, two melting tubs of ice cream, and a mostly empty bottle of wine.

He tried to sneak by to leave them blissfully unaware of his presence, but Sydney’s voice calling his name made him poke his head back through the doorway.

“Hi,” she smiled. “Want a cookie?”

She looked so relaxed compared to the last time he’d seen her, and he knew that half the news he had to share would make her happy while the other half would likely put him on that very couch until tomorrow, so he opted to let his last meal be one of Francie’s delicious chocolate, chocolate chip cookies.

“Sure,” he grinned and moved closer, the chef grabbing one and setting it on top of the box since his hands were full. 

“What’s in the box?” Of course she’d ask.

“Nuthin’,” he mumbled with a wink and turned away. “Finish your movie and have fun,” he ordered and left.

Two hours later she made her way in as he sat at the desk in comfortable cotton pajama pants and a plain white tee looking through another file. “You’re still up? It’s like, two in the morning,” she chided.

He set the papers down and smiled, leaning back in the chair. She walked to his side and Vaughn wrapped an arm around her waist, tipping his forehead to rest against her hip. He relaxed as her fingers dove into his hair, her other hand reaching for a file in the box.

“What have you been working on?”

He moved quickly and pressed down keeping her from lifting the papers, spotting the surprise on her face. “It’s two in the morning. Let’s just sleep and then I can show you what tomorrow’s project will be.”

“But now I’m curious.” She reached again.

“You won’t sleep afterward. Let’s just do it tomorrow.”

He stood and redirected her toward the bed, feeling her resistance. “You know I’ll just wait for you to fall asleep and get up, right?”

Vaughn let out an exasperated sigh. “Curiosity killed the cat, does that phrase mean nothing to you?”

She shrugged and flashed a bright dimpled smile, "the cat’s got a few lives left, Vaughn.”

Hanging his head and knowing there wasn’t a way out of it, and he didn’t much feel like taking a hit to the stomach mid-sleep once she realized the box’s contents on her own, he nodded and grabbed her file from the top of the left pile.

She reached for it eagerly, but his grip kept it locked between them. “This is...shocking, okay? Like...if you want me to take out the first page I will, kind of shocking.”

Her bravado began to falter at the sudden seriousness on his face. “What is it?”

“It’s your file.”

“From where?”

“Server 47.”

“Where did you get it?”

“Sloane gave me this box today and...it’s a lot.”

Sydney had never wanted anything more in the whole world than to open that box. No Christmas on record had balled up the amount of nervous energy she suddenly had coursing through her veins and settling low in her stomach, the sugar high from the junk food not helping.

“I can handle it,” she said quietly, though she wasn’t sure what she was supposed to handle and if that statement was true. 

Her file? Which one? She had probably a dozen files on missions, training, seminars, paperwork, physicals, and more, but she’d read those already. Nothing in any of those files could be considered ‘shocking’.

He loosened his grip enough for her to take it into her hands, and she lifted the top slowly but confidently. At the picture, her eyes closed and her breath slammed into the bottom of her lungs for a moment, and she barely felt his hand on her shoulder, his voice telling her to take it easy and that everything was okay.

After a few deep breaths, she refocused, her eyes looking around the picture to read the text quickly before flipping it out of the way. She had much the same reaction as her father as she realized that in her hand were the pieces of the puzzle that would put Flynn away. She too looked to the box and the scattered stacks of files across the desk knowing what they were without reading anything.

“Is this all-”

“Yes.”

Tears filled her eyes as she met his steady green gaze. “All of it?”

“Every single murder across fifteen countries, yours included. It’s...it’s enough to give the F.B.I. all they’d need to send him to hell.”

Sydney scoffed, “if they could find him.”

The moment she saw the guilty look on his face he knew he’d be spending the night on the couch. “Syd,” he started but she held up a hand to silence him.

“Vaughn,” she gasped.

“I...hold on,” he stuttered.

She gasped as her lips formed a nearly perfect ‘o’. “You know where he is.”

“Yes.” He reached for her but she stepped back, her legs wobbling. Her eyes were suddenly deep pools of tears, the saline brimming against her lashes as she searched his eyes for the truth.

“Don’t. Please..don't say it.”

“He’s upstairs.” The confession came spilling out, his tongue unable to hold it back, and the crushing hurt that contorted her face hit him in the gut.

The air was sucked from her already shocked and starved lungs, the right side pinching as she folded in the middle and ended up with her hands on her knees taking deep shaking breaths. Tears fell from her downward-facing eyes to the floor in large plops, but the moment his hands went to steady what he thought was her frail frame, the forceful way she yanked herself from his touch reminded him that she was almost back to where she’d been before this whole thing had started.

He kept his distance as regret filled his soul. Her chin trembled as she tried to find the words, wet trails on her cheeks belying the anger he knew she felt, the vein on her forehead prominent as well as the tensing of the muscles in her jaw.

“Out of everything," swallow, "of a-all the things," sniffle, "you...that’s what,” she sobbed, “this whole time?”

He nodded and took a step forward, both of them startled by the slap that stung his cheek, the sound a sharp crack in their ears. The silence afterward felt like a crushing weight, but what he didn’t expect was the apology that left her lips or the way her hands folded to fidget with the engagement ring on her left hand.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered again.

“I deserved it.”

“ **No**...I,” she swallowed the rising lump of emotion strangling the back of her throat. “I’m sorry.”

Rushing forward, she threw her arms around him. He caught her as one arm circled and splayed a hand between her shoulder blades, the other cupping the back of her head to hold her against his chest. Her fists bunched the fabric of his shirt as she sobbed into the cotton. 

His knees ached and his back was tight by the time she loosened her grip and pulled away, his hands catching and cupping her red, tear-stained face as thumbs wiped at her cheeks.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly and leaned in to press a kiss to her forehead.

She stepped away, wiping at her nose with the back of her hand before releasing a heavy sigh and closing her eyes tight against the headache that was beginning to pound in her temples. 

“The whole time, huh?”

“We grabbed him that night, just like you said we would.”

She nodded and he could tell she was thinking. He was desperately curious to know what about but wasn’t brave enough to ask. That and his cheek still stung from the last attempt, so he thought it pertinent to keep quiet and let her take the lead.

“If we’re turning this over to the F.B.I., I get to tell him.”

Vaughn’s eyes went wide but he kept his mouth shut.

“I’m serious. I get to be the one that tells him he’s going down for it. For all of it,” she growled and met his surprised stare.

“I have a plan if you want to hear it,” he suggested quietly, holding his breath and waiting for her answer.

**...**

The late morning was cool and comfortable, the waiter bringing him another glass of iced tea as he relaxed. Sydney had been pulled into a meeting in the secret lower conference room by Kendall and her father, so he decided to get out of the proverbial house and beat his mom to their semi-weekly lunch.

They met at the same place each week when possible and had for years. It was a small, French-style cafe that served some of the best artisanal bread, cheese and wine that either of them had ever had, so it quickly became a favorite. 

"Anything else, Mr. Vaughn?" Their usual waiter asked as he topped off the glass.

"Thanks, Ethan, I'll wait."

The bronze coin spun in his fingers as he sipped the tea and enjoyed the warmer weather of late morning early afternoon. He still felt guilty that over the last few months he was able to enjoy moments like this while Sydney was literally trapped in a basement with no ability to leave, but she’d been assuring him time and time again that it was okay, and the fact that things would be changing very soon put him at ease.

The outdoor patio was behind the cafe and hidden from the noise of passing traffic, and his eyes followed the strings of small round lights festooned along the wooden frame of the gazebo. This place brought back a lot of memories and he found himself following the rabbit trail.

_"Bonsoir, maman," Michael greeted in French, their custom as he joined his mother's table on the patio, the overhead light strings casting a pale ambient glow. A lamp flickering with candlelight illuminated the flatware from the center of the table as well as the tray of bread and cheese his mother had ordered while she waited._

_"Hello, dear," Deloreme Vaughn said sweetly, her son pressing a kiss to her cheek before taking up his seat._

_"I'm sorry for being late, my meeting ran a little long."_

_She waved him off, "it’s perfectly alright, I was enjoying the night. Is everything alright?"_

_Vaughn sighed and nodded, though his smile didn't reach his eyes._

_"Michael, my boy, you know I can always tell when something is amiss. Tell me."_

_He resisted. "No, mama; I want to let the day go so I can be here with you."_

_She tsked behind her teeth and pursed her lips, Vaughn sighing again and trying to work through what he could and couldn't say._

_"I've been working with another agent, someone new the last month or so, but today I got reassigned." A third sigh left his lips, this one angrier than the other two, “replaced.”_

_"Why?"_

_"Because this agent is...really good and they don't think I'm senior enough to handle her case."_

_A glint flitted across his mother’s eye at the anger in his voice, and the fact that he’d said ‘her’. There was a certain...longing behind his words. "Upset at losing the girl, are we?" she said and took a sip of wine._

_"No," he backpedaled quickly. "No, no, that's not it. She just...the guy they picked is an ass. I'm worried he's not going to take the job as seriously as he should."_

_“If she is as good as you say, why worry?”_

_Michael looked lost for a moment. Sydney was an impressive agent, but she was spending a lot of time recently in the unknown, and that forced her into a cycle of reaction. Double agent life was still so new that she was relying on the C.I.A. for direction, and he didn’t entirely trust Lambert to give her that._

_“Is she nicer than Alice?”_

_“Mama,” he warned as he poured himself a glass of wine from the waiting carafe._

_She scoffed, “she’s not good enough for you, Michael. Tell me about this new girl.”_

_“Mama, there’s nothing to tell. She works for the C.I.A. and, until today, I was working with her. I barely know her,” he lied._

_Another scoff, “well then don’t be so worried about her well being. Another agent can handle things if they come up, you’re not the only person that works there. I’m sorry, I’ll be nicer about Alice. Are you still dating?”_

_Mulling the question over with a mouthful of wine, Michael rocked his head back and forth in a semi-serious nod. “Sure. I don’t know. We had an argument a few days ago and I haven’t talked to her since, but...things will come around.”_

_“It sounds to me like you should ask this new girl out for coffee.”_

_‘_ ** _If only,_ ** _’ he thought and shook his head._

_“Michael, you must be honest. In everything you do, always be honest.” Being chided by his mother always made him smile. Unlike others, her chiding always had a way of pulling him out of his funk, and this time was no different._

_“Yes, mama,” he promised. He cut a slice of cheese and placed it on the small piece of bread, chewing as his eyes focused on the miniature overhead hanging bulbs. This offered her a chance to focus on her son and take stock of his body language._

_Everything about Michael Vaughn screamed ‘tense and worried’. He reminded her so much of his father when he worried, which lately seemed to be all the time. His brow would wrinkle up, same as Bill’s; his green eyes would dull, just like Bill’s._

_"Michael, things happen for a reason, you know this. Perhaps you and this other agent weren't meant to be." It was her turn to backpedal at the annoyed glare he tossed her direction. "Not like_ **_that_ ** _, you know what I mean. Maybe you and this other agent aren’t the team you thought?"_

_Vaughn rattled her words around his brain, but her last sentence unnerved him. He found himself lost in thought for a moment and she let him dwell as the waiter came by to take their order._

_She ordered for him and sipped at her wine as he fidgeted with his coin, another Bill Vaughn habit her son had picked up._

_"Tell me what you're thinking, my boy."_

_Michael stayed quiet for a few more seconds until he met her eyes with an unexpected smile. "Do you remember the day dad gave me his watch?"_

_A wistful and longing look flickered across her face. "Of course."_

_"I didn't want him to leave. He’d been gone so much already and he was going to miss my hockey game, but he said it was an important work mission. He handed me his watch so I could count the seconds until he came home because I could ‘set my heart by it', and it would never give me the wrong time."_

_The pair shared a soft pause. "What I never told_ **_you_ ** ... _when I woke up the next morning, it had stopped. It wasn't working."_

_Deloreme's brows lifted in surprise. “Really?” She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear, the grey locks swept into a bun at the back of her head as wisps hung down around her shoulders. Michael found it endearing that both Sydney and his mother shared the habit, something he wouldn’t say to either of them any time soon._

_His smile turned sad. "I was so worried. The one thing dad had told me to do was count the seconds until he came home. If I couldn’t count how would I ever know when he’d be back? I didn’t tell anyone until the day of the funeral.”_

_“Darling, why not?”_

_Vaughn shrugged. “I thought it was my fault. I broke dad’s watch, so he couldn’t come home. Uncle Tony set me straight and explained that sometimes watches like those have to be wound to keep going, and it had probably been a while. He showed me the knob and sure enough - with one twist the damn thing started ticking, but I never forgot that feeling. I think of it every time I pull it out,” he admitted, reaching into his jacket and extracting the shiny silver and glass bound by worn leather bands._

_He set it on the table and slid it over, Deloreme smiling and pulling it into her hands. “I’ll never forget what he said. I could set my heart by that watch, and it stopped when he died.”_

_“Michael,” her voice was emotional._

_“I know, I know. Superstition isn’t reliable; it’s silly, but...it was so visceral. The timing was so...permanent.”_

_Turning the watch over she looked at the front and noticed that the second hand was still. Holding it to her ear, she frowned. “It’s...stopped.” Michael nodded and saw her fingers twist the tiny knob a few times before returning it to her ear, though no tick could be heard._

_“It ticked its last on October first,” he admitted and she handed it dejectedly back to her son, lifting her wine glass to take a sip. He took it into his hands lovingly as a crooked smile hit his face. “It stopped the day I met that new agent.”_

_Sputtering on her wine, Deloreme placed her napkin against her lips. “What,” cough, “what does_ **_that_ ** _mean?”_

_Vaughn laughed, “I have no clue, but that’s why I’m worried. We’re a good team, mama. On missions we’re in tune and when I’m not there she...she’s really good at what she does, but...she has a habit of getting emotional. All of this is so new. The wrong person giving the wrong order could get her killed. People have already tried, and if I wasn’t there to correct their mistakes, she’d be dead."_

_Finally telling someone what he thought and how he felt made it all a little better. "The last time this watch stopped,” he held it up with a small shake, “someone I cared about died. I just...I don’t want it to happen again, you know? Superstition or not.”_

Someone across the patio dropped something, the tinkling glass pulling him from his reverie as the waitstaff rushed to clean everything up. A hand tapped his shoulder and made him jump, his eyes whipping up to see his mother’s laughing face.

“Did I startle you, Michael?” She leaned in with a chuckle and pressed a kiss to the top of his head. Vaughn laughed and squeezed her fingers as she slipped past and into the opposite chair. “Have you been waiting long?”

“I got here early, mama, it’s okay. How are you?” The lilting, anything but foreign words rolled off his tongue and he felt most at home when they were speaking her first language.

She was excited to see the jovial attitude and how youthful he looked, much more so than their previous lunches the last few months.

“I’m well, darling. You seem in a good mood, is there anything you can share?”

“I’m just having a good week,” 

“That’s nice,” she said as she took a drink from the ice water. “Tell me about your good week if you can.”

Vaughn smiled, “we have an operation coming up that will...right a lot of wrongs.”

Deloreme scanned his relaxed pose. His shoulders were loose and he was sitting in a white button-up shirt with no tie or jacket, informal for him during a workday. Her eyes caught a few extra details, however, that belied the announcement of his good mood being solely work-related. Those eyes that had swept him from head to stomach, all she could see from her vantage at the table, went wide. “You’re seeing someone.”

_‘Shit.’_

“No I’m not,” he said quickly, but the higher pitch and his defensive tone made her eyebrows rise in excitement.

“You are! Tell me!” Her mood floundered as she sent a quick frown, “wait; it isn’t Alice, is it?”

Michael laughed and shook his head. “No, mama. If I was seeing someone, it wouldn’t be Alice. Just for you,” he promised.

The waiter came by and took their orders, Michael seeing that she wasn’t going to back down. “I’m not lying to you," he lied.

She scoffed. “I think I know you well enough to see the signs. Are you finally over having your heart broken?”

He sighed and hung his head, though a reminiscent smile still played on his lips as his shoulders dropped. He’d almost forgotten that he’d given her a lying excuse during the first two weeks after Sydney’s supposed death in an attempt to explain his depression. The story was that he’d been seeing someone who, right before he started working on the rescue efforts for their captured agent, had dumped him out of the blue. 

In those days, it wasn’t hard for him to cry at the drop of a hat. Though Sydney had survived, she was still unconscious and critical in the medical ward. Small improvements each day were too small to bring him out of the constant state of dread, so he’d made _her_ up: Lauren. Some NSA liaison with his field office that he’d met a few months before the whole “website incident”. He fabricated what he needed in order to justify how broken his heart had been, and his mother had left him alone about the topic until now.

 _‘Screw it,’_ he thought.

Looking left and right, his mother following his gaze despite the fact that she had no idea what he was looking for, he seemed content with their surroundings and reconnected with her confused blue eyes.

“I lied to you, mama.”

Her eyebrows lifted. “Lied? When? About what?”

“I...I wasn’t dating someone, and they didn’t break my heart. I made her up.”

Deloreme frowned as the lightness of her features dropped to that of a stern mother staring down a disobedient child. “Why?”

“Because I had been dating someone at the agency against the rules, and it ended...very badly.” Vaughn’s voice was a low whisper and his mother followed his lead.

“Someone you’ve told me about?”

His nod was slow, and he hadn’t thought more surprise could hit her face. “Who?!”

She wasn't prepared for his smile. "Do you remember that agent? The one I met the day dad's watch stopped?” At his mother’s avid nod he looked around once more, the closest party to them several tables away and nary a waiter in sight.

His mother smirked, speaking before he could continue. "I knew there was more about her than you had let on. You said it ended badly; did the company find out?"

“It was Sydney Bristow.”

Deloreme fell back against the metal-backed chair with mouth agape. Michael chuckled at her reaction. “So yeah, you can say that four and a half months has been long enough to mend my broken heart.”

She stuttered half words several times and he patiently let her find the right thing to say while sipping his iced tea.

“Wh-why didn’t you tell me?”

“Mama, we saw what happened when the wrong people found out who she was. I wasn’t about to do it _for_ them.”

"Michael, I can't even...I mean, how did-" her eyes were unfocused and her hands moved as if she was talking, though no actual sentences were uttered.

Vaughn reached out and set a hand to her wrist to catch her attention. "Mama, it's okay. Really. I just...now you understand why I've been working so hard the last few months."

"Was...it worth it?"

Michael thought about that question. 

_Was what worth it?_ _Which part?_

He knew his mother wasn't aware of the full story. She was, for now, under the assumption that Sydney Bristow was dead, as was the rest of the planet. Even if she _had_ died, the answer he kept coming back to was...

"Absolutely."

Deloreme saw the conflict in his eyes, though his answer soothed her soul. 

"Well, I'm so very sorry, my boy. If things had ended differently, I have a feeling I would have liked her."

Vaugh grinned, "you would have loved her. She was a great cook and drank really good wine, and I think she read a crazy thick book once a week."

The food arrived and changed the subject for them, though as they talked about other things the revelation still hung in the air and she found herself shaking her head from time to time as she ate.

"What?" He asked, finally calling her out.

"I just...that...did you watch? While it was happening?" The darkening of his eyes was her answer.

She huffed, "why? How could you watch something like that done to someone you love?"

Sydney had asked him the same thing, and he’d asked himself that a million times.

"Not knowing was harder than knowing, but only just. If they gave some clue I wanted to know that."

"Did they?"

Michael nodded and she frowned, perking up and tilting her head. "Did...is there more than what was said on the news about this, Michael?"

He nodded again. "We found her. I mean...it was too late, but...we found her. They had been three blocks away." He was still mad about that fact and was fairly sure it wasn't ever going to go away.

He finally looked back up and saw wet trails down her cheeks. He decided to change the subject.

"Tomorrow is a big operation. Tomorrow...I get to make them pay."

**…**


	27. I Told You So

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [](https://www.flickr.com/photos/190971129@N06/50598070487/in/dateposted/)

**Part 27**

Her mind was lost in memory and her stomach was acting as if the floor was being struck by an earthquake dropping, rising, and shaking it under her wobbly legs.

_ ‘Get yourself together. You don’t need to prove to everyone that they were right - that you can’t handle this. You’ve handled more than this. This is easy.’ _

The elevator stopped and caused her insides to flip again, her hand settling flat against her turbulent stomach. She was trying to convince herself that she was afraid, nervous, worried, but none of it was true.

She wasn’t afraid. She hadn’t been afraid of him since the fifth day in that room.

She wasn’t nervous to see him, she was nervous about what she was going to say. Would she yell and scream? Go in and beat the hell out of him? Kendall had already explained that the door would never be opened and security would be monitoring everything.

Would she actually hurt him if she got the opportunity? Could she?

The  _ ‘just one punch; one satisfying punch,’ _ mantra came rolling back into her mind. 

A smirk hit her lips as she stepped into the hallway.

Sydney felt none of those things everyone feared she would. She felt excited.

Truthfully, Sydney only wanted to give him knowledge as her revenge. She wanted him to know that she was alive despite his efforts. She wanted him to know that his ego had gotten the better of him leaving her the victor. Most importantly, she wanted to be the one to tell him that he’d lost  _ everything _ because of her.

_ ‘Just one punch; one satisfying punch!’ _

The mechanical grinding of the gates as they lifted one at a time left her to stand for a few extra moments lost in her own thoughts. She had plans to stop and see her mother for a pep talk before moving deeper into the holding area.

The relaxed angle of her shoulders, the sleek, black, button-up blazer snug around her tapered middle with the collared work shirt underneath, Irina took in how rested, healed, and confident her daughter seemed compared to the last time they’d spoken.

“Any advice?”

The mother copied her stance, hands folded gently, and shook her head. “Whatever you want to say, you’ve earned the right to say it, sweetheart. You certainly don’t need anyone else’s advice. I imagine you know exactly what he needs to hear.”

The mother placed her hand against the inner pane of glass, and the daughter matched on the opposite side with a nearly identical smile.

"Make sure he understands."

The genuine moments she had with her mother made Sydney forget that there was an almost thirty-year gap in their relationship. Turning away and looking to the end of the corridor, she headed toward the last cell in the row.

A few steps and nothing else separated her from looking at the man that had permanently altered the course of her life, and she found herself preparing the breath in her chest with each step. Her memory slipped back to this morning to seek solace in the advice of her psychologist.

_ “Sydney, I know this is going to be hard, but I think it’s a step that you have to take. I mean, not many victims get to hold their abusers accountable.” _

_ The brunette paced the room as the doctor casually leaned against the desk. “It’s just,” Sydney paused trying to find the right way to express how she was feeling, “what if I...I can’t help it?” _

_ Sarah let out a singly airy chuckle. “You’ll help it.” _

_ “How do you know?” _

_ “Because you’re  _ **_you_ ** _ , Sydney. You literally embody  _ **_good_ ** _.” _

_ She shook her head. “I don’t know how to be good when I think of him. I just...I...” _

_ “Keep going,” the doctor prodded. _

_ Her fingers fidgeted nervously with her ring before she stopped pacing and let her arms fall to her sides as if she’d been defeated. “I wanna kill him.” _

_ “We all want to kill him, Sydney. You could do a man on the street survey in every city across a dozen countries and find people that, if given the chance, would say they want to kill him.” _

_ The former agent shook her head as tears filled her eyes, her left hand hitting her fingers over her sternum. “ _ **_I_ ** _...want to...to...” she stopped and let the threat fall away. _

_ “Say it.” _

_ She shook her head. “I shouldn’t.” _

_ “Say it anyway,” Sarah ordered, knowing how close her patient was at breaking through a barrier she hadn’t known existed before today. _

_“I want him to_ ** _hurt_** _. I mean, I want to_ ** _make_** **_sure_** _he hurts, and...and I want to be the one that does it.”_

_ Sarah gave a sad smile. "I know you like to think you're so different from everyone else, but that's really normal, Sydney." _

_ The shake was vigorous. " _ **_No_ ** _. Not for me." _

_ The doctor held up her hands defensively. "Believe me when I say that you are extraordinary at so many things, but having this reaction isn't one of those things." _

_ The tears that had been threatening spilled down her cheeks. "I don't know what I'm going to do when I'm standing there looking at him. I know that...that I won't feel like he felt when I was in that same room, but-" _

_"_ ** _It - is_** **_\- not the same room_** _. It's_ ** _not_** _the same room; you're_ ** _not_** _who you were back then."_

_ "I know that," Sydney growled and rolled her eyes. _

_ "But you just said 'when I was in that same room', so I need you to really understand that distinction.” _

_ "But it  _ **_should_ ** _ be. He should get his turn in that room." Sydney growled as her chin quivered. _

_ Sarah's voice had stayed low and calm. "Why is that?” _

_ “Because he  _ **_deserves_ ** _ it. Look,” she ordered and stalked to the box sitting to Sarah’s right. “This is... _ **_literally_ ** _ a box of his murders. There are over twenty  _ **_people_ ** _ in here that were killed,  _ **_eleven_ ** _ of them tortured beforehand.” _

_ “Are you counting yourself in either of those numbers?”  _

_ Sydney stilled as her breath came out in harsh pants through her nose. “Twelve.” _

_ The doctor nodded and took the lid, placing it symbolically over the top. “You’re always too hard on yourself. We have spent  _ **_days_ ** _ together trying to help you understand that what he did doesn’t get to define who you are going to be. And you’re so close, Sydney. So close.” _

_ The agent sighed and hung her head low, her hands resting flat against the desk. “I just...I don’t want to end up saying something I regret. Or worse...end up regretting that I didn’t say what I wanted to in the first place.” _

_ “Honestly? I don’t think you’re going to feel what you think you’re going to feel. Roles have been reversed here, and  _ **_he_ ** _ is the helpless one. You may be right about one thing though,” she said with an air of finality in her voice. _

_ “What’s that?” Standing tall and sliding her hands into her pockets, Sydney felt her shoulders sag a bit under the weight of the last few days as well as what was to come. _

_ “You are the only person that can look that fear in the eye.” _

_ “I’ve told you before that I’m not afraid of him,” she grumbled, and Sarah laughed quietly. _

_ Grabbing her patient by the shoulders, the doctor moved her to face the stand-up mirror in the corner of the room. Pointing at the reflection, “ _ **_that_ ** _ fear.” _

Her feet had nearly taken her to the window at the last cell as her mind had been clouded by a myriad of coping mechanisms, and she found herself only two steps away. A sweeping resolve settled her soul for the first time in days and she moved forward, eyes peering through the barrier.

He was sitting on the metal cot with his elbows propped on his knees and his face zeroed in on the glass. She almost didn't recognize him. Nothing about him was the same as the last time he'd been in front of her, and she wasn't sure how four and a half months could change someone so much. As she took in every aspect of him, from the bare feet up to the thin shoulders, the overall difference was that he'd lost most of his lithe physique.

The man was downright scrawny. Her eyes made it to his head where she saw a scraggly short beard around his chin and pursed lips, the overhead fluorescents brightly showing off a hint of strawberry blonde in the facial hair. The mop on his head was longer as well, hanging down in oily locks over his ears and neck with the bangs swept to the left away from his eyes.

Those eyes; those icy blue eyes.

They were exactly the same - a narrowed fierce glare, and she could tell he was having a hard time deciding if she was real or if he'd started losing his mind. 

She decided to reassure him.

"You're a long way from hundred-dollar haircuts and three-piece suits."

He stared. That was all. His frosty blue eyes didn’t leave hers, however, and she took a moment to study his body language. His shoulders were now pushed forward, the collar bones sticking out at gross attention to the right and left of his neck, and the muscles in those skinny arms flexed as much as they could. His hands that had been lightly clasped between his knees where his forearms were propped were now tightly woven as the knuckles turned white with the squeezing strain.

A grin tilted her lips as she maintained her casual pose, hands still lightly clasped in front of her as she rocked forward and then back on the balls of her feet. Her hair was loose and hanging behind her shoulders, long and flowing after months of no haircut much as his, though her room had a shower she could use whenever she felt the need. 

Caramel burned into ice as silence was exchanged between them, one pair filled with surprise and contempt as the other swirled with curiosity and something else. Sydney expected him to hit her with a witty comeback, surprised that he was content to duel her with just his stare.

She wasn’t angry that nothing came out of his tight lips, quite the contrary. She was ecstatic that something she’d done had finally made him shut the hell up.

“I...I spent a long time hating you. Hating what you did, what you said,” she paused a moment to choose her words, “who hired you and why. The strange thing is that...now I have to thank you.”

A minuscule twitch of his left eyebrow caused the eye to momentarily squint. A tiny motion that others likely would have missed, but not someone as trained as her.

“I’ve had an uninterrupted four and a half months to bring them to their knees, and it’s all thanks to you.”

She broke eye contact, not because she was overwhelmed with emotion or that his cold glare was too much to bear - it was because she didn’t want to rush through this moment. This was her  _ ‘I told you so’ _ moment, and it was as sweet and delicious as she’d imagined.

So her words were calm and calculated. “The first couple of weeks after I woke up, I couldn’t move. I’d spent forty-two days in a medically-induced coma and my muscles almost couldn’t remember how to function. Both from the time lost and from the damage that you’d done.” She switched her hands clasped at the front to the back, looking down at the tops of her toes before they pinched into the front of the shoes. Her voice was light and airy hovering just above monotone.

Stopping at the other end of the window, she turned back and continued her slow trek. “On my back with nothing but time. I imagine you know what that’s like.” She looked back into the cell, the scene much the same.

Flynn hadn’t moved, though she could see a small nervous wiggle in the toes of his right foot as they gripped and loosened over and over again against what she assumed was cold cement flooring. His fingers were still tightly woven, knuckles still white, and a faint tremor in his wrists gave away the fatigue in his now seldom-used muscles. Scanning back up to his face she saw that his cheeks had begun to turn pink and his jaw muscle was tense and rhythmically bulging as he ground his back teeth together. Still, he remained silent.

“I’m the last person you thought you'd ever see again, aren’t I?” Circling her hands back around, her fingers danced at the buttons of the blazer over her stomach, undoing them slowly one by one until the front was open. Shrugging her shoulders, the jacket slipped down her back to catch at her bent elbows, and she methodically slid her arms out the rest of the way one at a time. Taking a moment to fold it, much as he had in the cold cement room on day three, she walked it to the edge of the window and carefully set it to the floor before righting and moving back to the center of the window.

The feminine button-up hugged her trim waist ending just below the beltline of her dress pants at the top of her hips, the dark blue accentuating her pale skin.

“What was it, twenty-two times? With that crappy little knife,” she chuckled, a soft yet masochistic sound, and the fingers of her right hand undid the small button at the cuff of her left sleeve as she talked. “That was probably one of the most painful parts of recovery - getting past the awkward healing of those muscles from that stupid little knife.” 

Sydney’s eyes bored into his as she finished with the left side and moved to the right, her gaze swiveling down to guide the fingers of her left hand to pinch the miniature silver button through the tiny hole, the fabric loosening and opening around her wrist. Looking back up, she’d caught his eyes watching the process, the only movement insofar she had spotted. Wiggling the fingers of her left hand, she caught his attention.

“The doctor here was good at his job of putting them all back together, though the tips of a couple are still a bit numb.” She switched arms again, her right moving to the cuff on the left and beginning to slowly roll the satin sleeve up her forearm.

As she rolled, she continued. “Do you know what happens when you die?” 

No answer, but that eyebrow twitch was back. This time, on the right side.

"It was only for a few minutes, don't get so excited." Curiosity hit her face as her dancing eyes squinted with the change of subject, her hand stalling mid-way up her forearm, “ _ did _ they pick you up in a windowless van?”

No answer, but now the toes of the left foot were now curling against the floor in time with the right.

She shrugged and finished the sleeve before slipping her hands into her pockets and restarting her casual pace from one side of the window to the other. “There isn’t a white light." A pause accompanied by a small nod. "At least...there wasn’t for me. And as fascinating as having your life flash before your eyes sounds, that...didn’t happen either."

Stop, pause, turn, walk back. "All there is,” she halted, her fierce gaze returning to pierce his flashing blue eyes, “is feeling. The moment you slip away," she swallowed, "you...feel... **everything** .  _ Everything  _ you’ve  _ ever _ felt, all in one ball that replaces your heart before dropping into your stomach.”

In her left pocket, her thumb twisted the engagement ring around her finger. Despite the subject, the look on her face was serene and her skin glowed even in the aggressive fluorescent lighting. Her voice, however, was changing. Emotion bubbled up from her stomach, Sydney thinking she’d gotten it under lock and key before leaving her room. Realizing that it wasn't a detriment like she assumed, she decided to use it for what it was - a weapon she expertly knew how to wield.

“The feeling you get from disappointing a parent,” she said and began walking slowly back to the opposite side, her head tilting a bit as her eyes focused on a random water spot on the outside of the shiny glass. 

Her mind slipped away. “The first kiss, and the first time, and the first person you thought you loved merges with the last kiss, the last time, and the last thing you felt with the person you love.”

Her voice had quieted and had a slight tremor at the finish. Turning at the far end, she met his eyes, “the first moment of pain you felt as a child dissolves into the last moment of pain you experienced before it all goes-” the air at the back of her throat cut off and her mind came back to the present.

The hallway.

The glass window.

The trembling, furious man behind said glass window.

Fixing her eyes back on his, “goes black.”

Antagonistic to the conversation, a dimpled smile brightened her features as she looked up with an airy chuckle as if she just remembered a funny joke. “At the time I really thought the good part was going to be dying."

Silence. 

His lack of participation was fine with her, though she felt that everything was winding up to a sudden and inevitable change. The nervous wiggle that had previously inhabited his toes was now marching up his leg, the knee bouncing and cascading a wobble through his arms up to his shoulders. Even the oily strands of hair moved at the ends and the muscles where his shoulders connected with his sternum were twitching. She knew that her demeanor, along with the simple fact of her living presence, was driving him crazy.

Focusing on his eyes, she remembered every moment that they had probed her mind and soul, and this was the first moment she felt nothing for those eyes. She expected hate, but it wasn’t there. She expected pity, but that too was absent. She felt...nothing for him any longer.

Despite it all, his cerulean stare didn’t waver under the hooded brow as dark circles deepened above his thin cheekbones. If anything, his eyes had gotten darker, the color going from the center of an iceberg to the surface of a tumultuous patch of ocean.

Her face dropped into a mask of seriousness, “do you know what it feels like to come back to life?”

The leg bounce intensified, but he maintained his new mute persona.

She felt nothing negative for the first time in months. “It feels exactly the same, with only one exception,” she paused, a small fearless smile tilting her lips. “It comes with the unending joy of knowing that I beat you.”

The rubber band snapped. Finally tightened past the point of no return, the microscopic imperfections in the surface exponentially expanded and broke the loop. His feet slapped against the floor, his springing motion hurtling him toward the glass - toward his enemy. Balling both hands into fists, his fingers resonated as a muted pang against the bullet-proof barrier the moment he could strike.

She had no idea why her fight or flight lizard brain didn’t force her to flinch and back away, but she was thankful it was taking the night off. Standing firm and unyielding, everything faded away as she watched him through the glass. Everything but him.

Once, another dull thud.

Twice, the sound of his fingers breaking despite the thickness of the glass.

Three times, the splitting of one or more knuckles as blood squished and spread from his purpling red fist.

A fourth, the blood splashing against the glass as a raw, unrestrained howl tore from his throat. Voices called from the other end of the hallway, the security guard trying to get her attention, but she was transfixed - unmoving. Hands in her pockets, collected, composed, distant, she stared.

Sydney wasn’t focused on the bloodstained glass, drops now coalescing enough to leave behind red trails under where his hand rammed a fifth, sixth, and seventh punch.

It was his eyes that held her. Azure blue flame and filled to the brim with tears, she watched as time seemed to slow, the drops spilling over the eyelids to move down his gaunt cheeks and disappear into his untrimmed beard. His nose ran into the equally unkempt mustache, and a ribbon of blood splattered across his face, a thick drop landing on his upper lip.

She couldn’t keep from watching that droplet’s journey as it fell from the upper lip to bounce off the lower, mouth open with tongue low and rippling between his teeth. He was still screaming, the guards were still yelling, but something had changed inside her, and she realized that fact as she watched that drop of blood stagger through the stiff hairs on his chin.

From her peripheral she saw a hand slowly reach out, the touch gentle as it rubbed the soft skin of her forearm above where her hand was still tucked in her pocket. Unable to take her eyes off of the irreparable damage Flynn was undoubtedly doing to his hands, her mouth repeatedly opened and closed without sound, the new person shushing her quietly.

“It’s okay. Let’s go back upstairs.” 

It was Vaughn.

Sydney nodded emotionlessly and let him lead her back to the elevator. She didn’t remember the ride back to the bottom floor.

Michael was at a bit of a loss. She wasn't crying, she wasn't yelling, she was having no reaction whatsoever, which was not a very ‘Sydney’ thing. He sat her on the edge of the bed as she stared blankly ahead. He could tell by the movement of her eyes that her mind was going a mile a minute and that wherever she was, it wasn’t here.

Collecting what he needed from around the room he returned to kneel in front of her. With slow, gentle movements he removed the shoes from her feet before working to undo the buttons of her shirt, slipping it from her shoulders and replacing it with a soft cotton tank top. Standing, one hand took hers as the other cupped her elbow to pull her up and keep her steady.

“Can you stand?”

No answer. He let go, however, and she didn’t tip over, so he quickly had the dress pants pooling at her feet before sitting her back down so he could pull them aside. Replacing them with running shorts, he turned down the bed and helped her in before killing all but the lamp on the desk and climbing in beside her.

The soft glow of said lamp across the room illuminated the side of her face as she lay on her back staring up at the ceiling with wide brown eyes. All had been silent for the last hour, and the erratic movement of her eyes had mostly stopped though she still hadn’t said anything. Michael ran the pads of his fingers in soft lines from her shoulder to the back of her hand in hopes that she would begin to feel relaxed enough to sleep, but it hadn’t yet worked.

A few moments later, “tell me how you’re feeling,” he asked in a whisper.

She didn’t answer, his request mixing with the tumultuous cacophony of everything else in her head. She gave a mini shrug to her shoulder and he went back to spelling insanely elongated letters of the alphabet with his fingers along her arm.

A few minutes went by until she said something, her voice below the hint of a whisper. “Nothing.” 

Vaughn didn’t know what to say. Again. For the hundredth time that hour. His mind fired off a dozen things he  _ wanted _ to say, but he decided against that whole mess and focused on letting her take the lead, hoping she would expand on  _ ‘nothing’ _ .

When she didn’t, his mind jumped back in.

_ ‘Nothing? Like...you feel nothing?’ _

Moments pass.

_ ‘You feel everything right now and should talk to me about it before it eats you up.’ _

Silence.

_ ‘Damn it, Sydney, we’ve come too far these last few months for you to shut me out now.’ _

Slowly blinking, staring eyes still looking up.

“Please tell me how I can help you.” He knew his whisper sounded like a beg, but by this point, he  _ was _ begging.

“Shouldn’t...shouldn’t I feel something?” She surprised herself with her response.

“Like what?”

She sighed and he could almost feel her confusion. “I stood there looking at him, and I felt...everything. Just,” shaking her head slowly as her right hand snapped her fingers, “all at once. Every moment in that chair and...every muscle ache and bone throb. But I was calm. I...I was so calm.”

She expected tears, but there were none. “Seeing him took me right back there, but it didn’t come with the fear. It came with hate. I genuinely wanted him to hurt with every word I said,” she paused and swallowed expecting the lump of emotion at the back of her throat, but it was also missing. “I don’t know where it all went.”

“Maybe you’re just coping with it better than you thought you would.”

She surprised him by sitting up and sliding out from the blankets, and he followed her lead to a point. While she carefully walked to the other side of the room, back halfway, and then out again, he moved to sit on her side of the bed with his elbows on his knees trying to be as open as possible.

“I wanted to scream at him.”

“I know,” he whispered.

“I mean, I...all I felt in that moment was the anger...and the hurt.”

Slow pacing.

“What he did,” pause, “how he did it,” turning to head back the other direction, “how much he enjoyed it. I wanted him to hurt because of that.”

“I know,” he repeated, but as she kept talking he wasn’t sure she was even aware that he was chiming in on her suddenly outside thoughts. 

_ ‘If this is where her mind has been the last hour, I should have interrupted 59 minutes ago.’ _

She knew she was acting manic, but she didn’t feel that way. She was still trying to put her finger on  _ what _ and  _ how _ she felt, and wasn’t sure if she was any closer now than when she’d started. So she kept moving, her steps slow and steady as she pathed around the room, one arm akimbo as the other gestured each bit of articulation.

“So where did it go? I...I broke him. I won. Where did the feelings go?”

“You’re dealing with them,” he reminded her.

She wobbled her head, neither agreeing or otherwise, Michael finally getting some sort of confirmation that he was a participant in this discussion. “But I should still feel something like that, right?”

Sydney’s eyes turned to his as she stopped in the middle of the room, and the uncertainty swirling in those almost-black depths took his breath away.

“I don’t know, Sydney. What  **do** you feel?”

She honestly looked like she was thinking as hard as she could, her eyes unfocusing and looking down to his feet against the woolly rug soft under their toes and warding away the chill of the laminated flooring. When she met his gaze again, she was nowhere closer to answering that question than before.

“Nothing.”

He’d tried before to keep his frustration at bay, but Vaughn’s patience finally ran out as, “that’s not possible,” slipped from his throat. 

Her normal response would be to get mad. He expected the instantaneous anger to flash in her eyes, the frown to crease her forehead, and the purse of her lips to all take place before she fired back at him, but instead, he got an emotionless shrug.

Looking down to her hands, she pinched the skin behind her pointer finger with her nails and felt the bite. She could feel _something_ ; that wasn’t the issue. She just wasn’t able to care. She was emotionally exhausted, exhausted in that she was empty.

“You’re not empty, Sydney,” he chided, and she realized that she must have said that part out loud. He stood and moved to stand before her. “You’re just...it was a lot. We knew it would be a lot.”

“But where did it all go?”

Her question was genuine and neither knew the answer. Instead, Vaughn reached out and took her hand, placing it flat over his chest. “I’m here, sweetie. You don’t have to feel everything every moment of every day. You can let it go with me; no obligations. You don’t have to feel  **anything** right now, it doesn’t mean that you’re broken. And if you are? I’ll fix you.”

She felt the warmth underneath her hand, the heat seeping through the thin cotton shirt from his chest into her palm. She felt the steady and elevated rhythm of his heart. She realized that the tempo thudding in her ears matched what she felt against her hand.

The two steps she took toward him caught him off guard, as did the feeling of her mouth crashing over his. The gasp that parted his lips enabled her tongue to dart forward and duel with his, his mumbled words of surprise turning into a groan as he grabbed her hips and pulled her tight against his body.

Sydney’s hands fisted the shirt behind his back as she clung to the light at the end of the proverbial tunnel. Walking him backward toward the desk, not realizing they were closer than she thought, she felt the bite of the wooden edge against the back of her thighs. Letting herself fall to sit, she lifted her legs and hooked them over his hips as their mouths broke apart. This pulled his straining lower half into contact with the warm juncture of her thighs, Michael’s hands moving from her hips to cup her cheeks and force her eyes to meet his.

“Tell me this is what you need,” he begged, “I gotta hear you say it.”

“I need you to fix me,” she panted.

Vaughn stared deep into her eyes, their proximity to the room’s only light source allowing him to see the darkness creeping away as it backfilled with light brown and the telltale hint of purple circling the inner ring of her iris. He nodded, his lips smothering hers once more, hands back at her waist to somehow slip the shorts down to her knees currently wrapped around his hips keeping them only inches apart.

Flattening his palm against the underside of her right thigh, he pushed it into her body and slid the one side down and off, letting it and her limb wrap back around before doing the same on the left. He couldn’t feel the bare skin of her thighs around his hips due to the boxers, but she’d looped her ankles around his backside and he felt lucky enough that he’d removed the shorts without them both toppling over, so they’d have to skip the rest of the undressing.

Beginning to seep like warmth into her limbs was the familiar intimacy she shared with him. Though her hands still clung to the back of his shirt and her legs wrapped tightly around his waist, she was starting to care again. That feeling was settling low in her stomach and charting a path of fire to her center.

Though they were both hungrily claiming one another’s mouths, he was gentle with his nips and his hands weren’t roughly squeezing her hips. The only problem was that she didn’t  _ want  _ gentle. She wanted rough, hurried sex that could shock her mind back into her body.

His mouth broke from hers as they gulped air between their swollen lips, and her hands left the now wrinkled spots of his shirt. One dug fingernails into his bicep as the other dove into his hair and pulled his head to her throat.

“Don’t be gentle right now. That’s not what I need,” she begged, her voice sultry and low. 

“Syd, I-” he protested with his mouth close to her ear, though he was beginning to feel the hurried pressure her body was pushing into his.

“ **_Michael,_ ** ” Her growled warning sent a rush of excitement from his stomach to his erection, and her complaint was cut off by the love bite she sucked against the junction of neck and shoulder above the collar of his shirt. It stung a little and he instantly knew there would be a raised purple mark there in the morning, if not later this evening.

She also knew that it was one of his buttons, and the way his fingers tightened against her hips and the deep rumble she felt and heard from his chest told her that it worked. His lips were hard and his tongue commandeered hers. The hand at his bicep skimmed over his shirt and down his stomach, fingernails scratching against the jumping muscles until she reached the waistband of his boxers. 

She felt the fingers of his right hand slide over the soft fabric of her panties as hers dove into the opening at the front, each sharing a groan into the mouth of the other as her hand circled his hardness and his sneaked inside the cotton to tease at her folds. She guided the tip toward her cloth-covered opening, but could still feel him holding back.

Her pouted lips brushed the lobe of his ear, “I need you to help me feel, Vaughn. Being gentle won’t do it. I need-” she gasped as he brushed his finger over the sensitive button of nerves, her hand squeezing his shaft and making him hiss behind clenched teeth before laving his tongue against the pulse point of her throat.

“I know what you need,” his gravelly tone sent a spark of excitement to her sex, Vaughn deciding that if she was going to hit his sexual buttons that he would return the favor.

Roughly pushing her panties aside he aligned the tip with her core, one hand flattening against her lower back and sliding her forward to the edge of the desk to meet his swift entry. For once, his body wanted to take its time while his mind was pushing him to hurry, and he willed his head to win the war. Her wanton moan in his ear helped as he pulled back and thrust hard into her once more.

He missed the feeling of their bodies molding together as the clothes they still wore acted as a barrier between their hot bodies, and he could feel the undershirt stick to his muscled shoulders as sweat began to seep into the threads. The desk below them creaked with each rough push, his hands at her backside pulling her to meet his eager hips.

Sliding her hands beneath his shirt, her fingernails dug into the muscles over his shoulder blades as she tumbled off the cliff into her first orgasm with a cry, Vaughn slamming to the hilt and stopping for a moment as she caught her breath against his throat.

Unfortunately, that was the moment the corner leg of the desk had decided it was tired of their misuse. It buckled, and Vaughn suddenly found himself holding her weight on less than sturdy legs as she reactively tightened herself around him to avoid tipping over. The desk tilted to the floor and landed with a bang. He redirected their bodies and she felt the breath leave her lungs as her back thumped against the cement wall, his hardness still firmly tucked inside her core.

“Shit,” he growled and turned to look at the damage, though her hand roughly cupped his jaw and yanked his attention back.

“Who cares.” Punctuating her breathless words with as much of a hip swirl as she could do given her pinned position between him and the wall, he nodded and captured her lips as both hands moved to cup her backside to hold her up.

His biceps strained and he pushed against her chest with his upper body as his hips took over, and he knew his thighs would be  _ very _ sore the next day. At the moment, neither of them cared about anything but the finish line. The feeling of her now wet panties rubbing against the side of his shaft was new and exciting, and the slightly different angle of their coupling was causing the bulbous head of his arousal to slam against her G-spot. Both were different amounts of delicious friction that set everything in their lower stomachs to a boil.

His explosion triggered hers, Michael’s hands at her hips pulling her down to meet the last few thrusts until he was spent, the throbbing of her nerves grounding her slowly from her climax as she pulsed around him. She could feel the trembling in his arms as his body fought to keep her up, so she unwrapped her legs and found the floor on her own, two, wobbly feet.

What threw him off guard was the quiet giggle that came from her panting throat, and he followed her eye line to the broken and awkward angle of the desk to her right. Her laugh grew and he found himself joining as the mixed emotions of the evening began to wear off.

Her hand again cupped his jaw to turn his gaze, this time gently, and he saw the familiar purple-hued eyes bright and focused, a chocolate-brown again instead of the swirling near-black.

“Thank you,” she whispered, her lips brushing a soft kiss to his mouth. He responded by wrapping an arm around her back and pulling her in, his tongue softly sweeping against hers before breaking away and resting his sweaty forehead against hers.

“I love you,” he mumbled. He wanted to ask if she felt better, but that would ruin the moment.

Wherever she’d gone, he’d dragged her back from that place with his love, and  _ that’s _ what she’d needed from him.

“You’ve rescued me so many times, and I’ll never really be able to thank you.” 

He smiled at her honesty, eyes closing at her sincerity. “Believe me; I feel thanked,” he grinned, Sydney chuckling as he pulled away from her. She straightened the twisted tank top around her stomach as he yanked the cotton tee over his head and breathed a sigh of relief as the cool basement air chilled his overheated skin.

“I’ll fix your desk tomorrow,” he promised as she padded away.

“Well, you did break it,” her voice called out from the bathroom across the way, and he scoffed.

“ _ I _ broke it? Huh-uh.  _ We _ broke it.”

Her light laugh made his heart feel full. “Semantics,” she argued, walking back into the bedroom and crossing to the bureau to redress.

Michael crouched down and examined the leg, seeing that it wasn’t fixable. The metal was bent beyond saving, the bolt holding it together sheared and the wood splintered. Deep inside he was proud. His brain then reminded him that he would probably have to help lug a new desk to the elevator and into the basement from an upper floor, but pride was still in the lead.

With a sigh and a shrug, he rose and turned to see Sydney propped up on her palm watching him with sated eyes as her long hair fanned behind her on the pillow. A new top hugged her curves as the blanket lay over her hip. She wore a soft smile though he could see hints that things from earlier were still swirling around her head.

Leaning down and running his hand through the silky tresses, he pressed a kiss to her temple and moved to join her, spooning against her back and sliding his arm underneath the back side of her pillow. She sighed and looped her fingers through his.

“Do you actually believe that we can do tomorrow?”

Michael pressed a kiss to the back of her ear as his body began to relax. “You, my wife, can do anything.”

**…**


	28. Alliance Falling & Mister Thomas

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [](https://www.flickr.com/photos/190971129@N06/50608282601/in/dateposted/)   
> 

**Part 28**

My breath fogs the goggles as they pinch the cloth mask to the bridge of my nose. I can’t help but be insanely and nervously excited. The S.W.A.T.-like vehicle bounced along the road as we sat inside prepped to the nine in full tactical gear. In my hands was the trusty MP-5 submachine gun, the safety on since before I even loaded it, and the holsters were tight against my right and left thighs carrying the matching nine-millimeter pistols.

My heart must be going a mile a minute and I can hear the excited chatter floating around. I can’t really understand what they’re saying because I’m lost. Lost in memory. Sydney and Marshall and me laughing at some joke he made during a tech meeting; Sydney saving my ass and vice versa on countless missions; me sitting day after day brutally unaware of the truth as Arvin Sloane rambled on about this and that. I really hate that man.

Hindsight being what it is, I know that if I’d actually possessed an  _ ounce _ of the knowledge Sydney had during those long-winded meetings, I would have been right there with her - all eye-rolls, zoning out, and disbelief over his faked patriotism. We did everything but that together, I guess.

We don’t even get to do  _ this _ together. She’s not here, and that’s not fair. I can’t stop hearing what she said to me earlier today. I...I couldn’t leave without talking with her first. If only we could all be as forgiving and understanding as Sydney Bristow, eh? She was so excited, despite the fact that she wasn’t going. I mean, we all tried, even Jack. Full tactical gear meant that she would be indistinguishable from anyone else, but we were all surprised when Kendall said that it wasn’t  _ his call _ , it was  _ hers _ .

_ “Sydney...you should be there. If  _ **_anyone_ ** _ should, it’s you.” _

She just smiled and shook her head.  _ “Losing everything puts a lot into perspective. I don’t  _ **_need_ ** _ to do this part, I just have to be the first person you guys tell when it’s actually done. Seriously...don’t let them forget that I’m down here waiting for news.” _

I just stared at her, my dumb eyes filling with tears and my heart pinching as I realized how much my oldest baby had grown up. I said as much and she rolled her eyes reminding me that she was only around ten years younger than I was. It was a lie and we both knew it, but she always followed it up with  _ “you’re only as old as you feel.”  _ This time was no different.

_ “Today? I feel twenty-five.” _

Then she hit me with the truth.

_ “He deserves a lot more, but you just have to bring him in. Let him see your face and  _ **_know_ ** _ that it’s you. It’s  _ **_your_ ** _ moment. I already had mine.” _

Let him see your face and  _ know  _ that it’s you. Let him  **see your face** and know that it’s you.

The van stopped, and I didn’t think it was possible for my heart to beat any faster. I’ve never felt impatience hit me this hard, and I couldn’t help but stare at the mission leader willing him to give an update. That’s when his gloved finger hit his earpiece, and I knew it was time.

Adrenalin jumped through my limbs as he pounded his fist three times against the metal wall that led to the cabin. The van lurched forward and my damn heart went from the back of my throat to the bottom of my stomach.

The van stopped.

We stand and ready our gear.

The doors open.

We’re in the Credit Dauphine parking garage; I know it well. Looking over I can see my usual spot, the small stain of oil from the old family sedan right where it should be on the cement. Weiss cut the cable to the security feed ordering us to stack at the entrance, the doors opening with the swipe of a card at the keypad.

Seven rapid beeps and the locks disengaged.

One staircase, goggles in place, smoke and flash bomb canisters readied.

The office was suppressed; so many familiar faces, terrified as they dropped to the floor. 

The glass doors stand before me, the hated man in the expensive suit on the other side.

“I trust you’ve been made aware of my status as-” his ugly voice stopped the moment I yanked the mask and goggles from my head, expecting the shock I saw on his face. Though...maybe he hammed it up a bit with the stammering.

I fist the front of his expensive suit, bunching it and the tie between my fingers before hurling him to the glass desk.  **SLAM** . His flailing arms knock over the inbox full of paperwork and his phone, but I don’t care. Leaning down, I speak into his ear.

“I hate you for everything that you’ve done. If I didn’t have a future, I’d end you in your ugly-ass office.”

“D-Dixon...Marcus...calm down.”

That voice was trying to deescalate the situation, but what that voice didn’t know was that I  _ was _ calm. Calmer than I’d been in months, and definitely more than I’d been all day. 

“One of the last things she did was save me...save my family. You have no idea how badly I want to put a bullet into you, Sloane, just because of what you did to her. But...she taught me to be better, and better means  **not** ... **like** ... **you** . Get up,” I roughly yank the zip tie and lash his wrists together, spinning him around.

“I’m sorry, Marcus. For what it’s worth.”

I had a hard time not punching him in the moment after he said that. He wasn’t sorry. He wasn’t sorry at all, and we both knew that. He’d done anything he’d wanted for  _ years _ and had gotten away with it because of high-placed friends that were just as bad and rich as he was, and that cycle wasn’t about to end any time soon. I can feel the oppressive weight on my shoulders as I realize that there will always be an  _ Arvin Sloane _ out there somewhere. If not today, next week; maybe tomorrow.

“From you? That’s not worth much.”

The mask felt strange going back over my head, but I didn’t need to give everything away to the other people in the office. They’d figure it all out during debrief and be just as crushed as I was to learn that it was all a lie.

Walking Sloane to the back of a windowless van was one of the most satisfying things I’d ever done. If she couldn’t do it? I’m glad it was me.

**…**

Sydney had relegated herself to the kitchen after exhausting every avenue of distraction that was available to her. She’d run a couple of miles on the treadmill but stopped herself from going farther. The point wasn’t to wear herself out, the point was to while away the time. That and any farther would make her knee ache all night.

After the two miles were done came the hot shower. When that was done, she’d tried to watch television. When that wasn’t working, she’d ended up in the kitchen with a pint of coffee ice cream, her legs folded underneath her as she perched on the corner of the counter.

_ ‘This is going to work.’ _

_ ‘What if it doesn’t?’ _

_ ‘Oh, shut up, brain. It’s going to work.’ _

_ ‘Can you spend the rest of your life in a basement?’ _

She sighed. She’d had this conversation, argument, with herself countless times. If anything, being secluded in a basement had fine-tuned her ability to talk to herself, and she wasn’t sure if that was a good thing.

_ ‘I’m not going to spend the rest of my life in the basement.’ _

_ ‘Can you and Vaughn be happy down here? Raise kids?’ _

That one idea terrified her. Six months ago she would have laughed if someone had told her that she’d be out of the C.I.A. before next year, but here she was. She’d already filled out the retirement paperwork and accepted a ridiculous package Kendall assured that she'd more than earned, all before fully accepting to herself that she was done with this life. She was excited to get a chance at living something new, but the success of this mission was the one thing standing in her way.

Would she be given that chance? Could she take it if it wasn't given? Everything in her life was an unknown, though the biggest looming problem was that on paper, she didn’t exist.

_ ‘It’s hard to start a new life when you’re dead. I...I assume.’ _

Not that she didn’t also have a plan for that, but one step at a time. The Alliance had to go or no other plans mattered.

_ ‘There’s no use worrying about it. Just sit and eat your ice cream.’ _

That’s exactly what she was doing when the elevator across the hall dinged. That ding catapulted her heart into her throat and it was genuinely hard to take a breath until her nerves calmed down. Casting the carton aside and hopping off the counter, she rushed from the room and saw Dixon in the hallway. 

He was still in his tactical gear, and she could see the sweat beading on his forehead. Having been in that gear before, she knew how hot it was. He fidgeted there with a file folder in his hand, looking down and then up, and then down again.

“Did...how did…”

_ ‘How do you ask if the bad guys are all gone?’ _

_ ‘What are we, five?’ _

After a few moments of stillness, she made the first move. Stepping up with a nervous shake to her fingers, she quickly undid the straps and clasps holding his heavy kevlar vest in place. It loosened until he felt it slip away from his chest and back, and they both heard it hit the floor with a thud. Next was the tactical jacket underneath, and he felt the cool air of the basement hit his sweat-soaked undershirt and was instantly relieved. Her hand stayed for a moment over his pounding heart, and when she met his eyes again, his were filled to the brim with tears.

Everything slowed down around and inside her as the ball of optimism keeping her afloat popped. As much as she’d prepared herself for the worst and as much as she’d schooled herself not to get her hopes up, she’d done just that. Sydney had lain awake last night as this very moment haunted every thought. The feeling of long-dead coils of fear and anger sprouted below her stomach and weaved like thorny vines around her lungs to surround and pierce her breaking heart.

_ ‘I’m so stupid! I thought it would be easy! So  _ **_stupid_ ** _!’ _

“It’s okay,” was all she said in a strangled whisper as her gaze slipped from his to focus on the teeth of the zipper to the left side of her hand. “We can,” shuddering inhale, “it’s not o-over. We can...still get them, I don’t...we...”

“It’s done. They...they’re gone, Sydney.”

Before everything crashed, it froze. The pieces of her heart and mind all stopped as if hitting a glass ceiling - a ceiling that protected the rock bottom of her soul. Their brown eyes met as the tears spilled down his cheeks.

“It’s over, baby.” 

She dimly felt his fingers wrap around her hand, lifting it away from his chest and turning it flat so he could set the file folder over top. Her mind was still reeling, her brain still desperately trying to tamp down the flames of disappointment and avoid the looming spiral into despair, but she opened it. A sobbing laugh immediately flew from her lips, her dimpled smile juxtaposed to her red-rimmed eyes.

Vaughn had handed Marcus the folder and ordered him to go give Sydney the good news. Naturally, he’d assumed that it had some Kendall-ordained memo declaring the C.I.A. in control of all Alliance facilities, partners’ or otherwise. Peeking, he saw bright red marker hand-written across a blank piece of white printer paper, and he beamed with joy.

**HAPPY NEW YEAR. Let’s cash in those NEW BEGINNINGS.**

**…**

Forcing back a yawn, Greg Thomas brought the cup to his lips. The liquid was still too scalding to really drink, but each airy sip made him feel as if he was helping the caffeine soak into his burned lips in order to work. The elevator dinged and he stepped out with one eye on the phone that just chimed as someone else equally distracted moved forward, the two bumping awkwardly into one another. The man that had bumped him, however, wasn’t carrying a paper cup of fiery-hot liquid, and thus didn’t end up with it sloshed over their fingers and splattering the arm and front of their light blue button-up shirt.

“Sorry, man,” the guy said and hopped into the elevator as the doors began to close. Greg sighed deep, adjusted his crooked glasses, and turned right to head for his cubicle. The disgruntled figure of his boss stopped him short, another slosh of coffee scalding his already singed fingers.

“Where is the housing project report, Greg?”

_ ‘Shit.’ _ “Sorry, Ms. Litvak, I’ll get it to you asap. I just need to get to my office and boot up my laptop.”

Pulling her glasses from their spot resting at the tip of her nose, she glared daggers at the reporter and set a hand to her hip. “Printed and on my desk in twenty, no more excuses.”

Another sigh left his chest as the senior editor stalked away leaving him to slink to his desk. Bringing the only remaining swallow of coffee to his lips he chugged it down and tossed it at the trash, but it hit the rim and bounced back causing the last few droplets in the bottom to splatter up onto the stacked and printed article proofs on his desk.

“Could this day get  _ any worse _ ?” he muttered glumly under his breath.

“Mister Thomas?” A voice that sounded like a very large man rumbled behind him, Greg turning to see that his assessment was spot on as two guys in  _ Men In Black _ style suits stood calmly at the entrance of his cubicle.

“Maybe?” His reply made the bigger of the two grin.

“Would you come with us please?”

_ ‘Shit.’ _ “Uh...can I ask why you’re asking me to come with you?”

Commotion in the immediate area of the office stopped completely as every person stared at the interaction. 

The shorter, but no less intimidating, gentleman answered, “it’s a matter of national security, sir.”

“National security? I’m doing a report on a local housing project, I don’t understand.”

“This isn’t about your work, sir, I can tell you that, leave whatever you’re working on and come with us,” the giant assured, making the request one last time.

It may have only been 9:08 in the morning, but Greg was done with this day and something clicked in his mind as he narrowed his eyes and fought back. “No. Not until you tell me who you are, who you work for, and why I’m being asked to go with you. It would also be nice to know where you’re planning on taking me.”

He thought he sounded brave save for the higher pitch of his voice, but the men shared knowing smiles before the bigger of the two responded, “I’m Agent Willis and this is Agent Olson. We are with Central Intelligence Agency Joint Task Force Operations and have been sent to bring you to our office for a meeting with someone; a meeting that has national security implications. Would you come with us now, sir?”

The tone of the voice and the giant hand he used to gesture toward the elevator indicated that they were a half step away from picking him up, tucking him under a muscled arm, and carrying him out. Looping the messenger bag back over his shoulder Greg stepped forward, the agents letting him lead the way to the elevator before joining him inside. He wasn’t claustrophobic until now, and as the doors closed, he felt like a kitten trapped in a box with two wild dogs.

“Thank you, Mister Thomas. Please know that you are not being detained and are free to leave at any time-” Greg’s hand shot out and hit the  _ open door _ button on the panel, and the agents laughed. “ _ After _ the meeting. We’ll bring you right back here if it’s where you want to go.”

There was a black sedan waiting for them out front, the larger man opening the rear door as Greg slid over the leather seats. He’d never been this scared in his entire life, and the myriad of unknown questions dug deeper and quickened his already rapidly beating heart during the drive across town. What was probably only fifteen minutes felt like an eternity, and as the car came to a stop at a gated checkpoint entrance, he released a breath he hadn’t known he was holding as the sign next to the guard station read 'Joint Task Force Operations Center'.

Knowing that they actually were who they said they were was a relief, though the reason for them picking him up in the first place was still a mystery. He was digging through his mind for contacts, projects, meetings, and informants, with nothing and no one shady coming to light. 

Greg had made a conscious effort to keep his work above board and was honestly proud of the fact that he had stayed below the criminal radar by being unbribable and only utilizing respected and trusted sources. The fact that the Central Intelligence Agency was knocking on his proverbial office door came out of nowhere.

The car stopped at the main entrance and the hulk of a man slid out, walked around, and opened the door, his cue to exit. The bright sun made him squint as he realized he'd left his sunglasses at his desk, but their time outside was brief as the men escorted him to the front door and inside the building.

Greg’s focus was the bold insignia on the floor and ran headlong into the muscled back of one of the agents as they had stopped in front of him. 

"Sorry," he whispered and looked around the foyer.

Kendall watched the young man escorted in, his journalistic eyes taking in every detail they could soak as he awkwardly clung to the shoulder bag with both hands like a scared school-yard boy.

“Thank you, fellas, I’ll take it from here.” The men nodded and went down a side passage, and the young reporter visibly relaxed. “Thank you for your willingness to come here today, Mister Thomas.”

“Willingness is a strong word,” he said quietly, finally laying eyes on the bald man before him.

Kendall merely laughed and gestured for him to follow before turning and walking farther into the facility. “Mister Thomas, I’m Deputy Director Kendall and I want to welcome you to the C.I.A./F.B.I. Joint Task Force Operation Center. ‘Round here we just call it the J.T.F.”

“That sounds important. Could...could you tell me what the hell I’m doing here?”

Kendall laughed. “Right this way.”

With practiced hands and smooth motions, Kendall walked through security, the guards not asking to see his credentials, though the man presented them anyway as the badge hung clipped to the breast pocket of his grey suit. More hallways lined with glass blurred past until one side opened up to a large open room filled with computer monitors, desks, a wall of screens, and a dozen people running around in business attire.

His jaw dropped and his feet stopped, Kendall turning his head to find the young man lagging behind. “C’mon kid, we’ll show you around later.”

“Later?” His first question was his mouth speaking before his brain could comprehend. “Wait...show me around?”

Kendall led the confused and awestruck journalist through the rotunda toward a back hallway of conference rooms before opening a door and leading the way in assuming correctly that he would follow. A blonde young man greeted them with excitement putting a bounce in his step.

“Greg, it’s great to see you again, man!”

“Will? Holy shit!”

The blue-eyed reporter-turned-analyst held out his hand. “Yeah. Sorry for the cloak and dagger routine, it’s kind of...well...my whole life right now.”

“Where the hell have you been, man? The office has been worried to death!” Skipping the handshake Will was pulled straight into a hug as the messenger bag became a lumpy wedge between the two men.

They parted with a pat to each shoulder before Greg settled into the offered chair. “I know, and I'm sorry about all that. It wasn't exactly my plan to, ya know, just...disappear.”

“I - I never got to say it, but I’m really sorry about Sydney. That was holy shit insane, dude. Have you been here this whole time? Is...was this where she worked? Is this where  _ you _ work?”

A throat cleared across the table and Greg turned to see another well-dressed man in a suit with a look of apprehension and annoyance shrouding his steel-blue eyes. “If you don’t mind, I’m sure Mister Tippin is more than happy to reconnect with you after the meeting.”

Kendall stepped back in and took a seat next to the scowling older agent. “Mister Thomas, this is Jack Bristow.”

“M-Mister Bristow, hello. I-” his awkward greeting was cut off.

“We’re going to speak very frankly here and we need to know very quickly if you are in or out on this project. Do you understand?”

Greg thought of answering ‘yes’ despite the fact that he had little to no information, but his brain kicked into gear before his mouth could again be impetuous. “Look, I have no idea why I’m here, so I can’t exactly agree to anything. If it’s a story, have Will do it. He’s a better writer and honestly, I have half a dozen projects waiting for me back at the office that I’m behind deadlines on already. That’s...not a good resume, I know, but it’s the truth.”

Will sent the two older agents a comforting grin and stepped up before they could toss his friend out. “I called you here. Believe me when I say that this...project,” he paused and looked deep into the matching blue eyes of his former colleague, “this is like nothing you’ve ever done before. This will put your name everywhere instantly and has Pulitzer written all over it. Trust me; you should say yes.”

Greg’s curiosity was definitely piqued. “Bullshit. Why give it to me and not take it for yourself?”

Kendall slid a folder across to the bewildered journalist still clutching his book bag like a lost child at the mall. Flipping it open a frown creased behind the thin-rimmed glasses. “This is a non-disclosure agreement.” He flipped a few more of the pages as his eyes opened wider. “This is...like a dozen non-disclosure agreements, and...a-and a living arrangement clause?”

Kendall nodded. “Mister Tippin is telling you the truth. This is a once and a lifetime opportunity that he can’t do by himself. He hand-picked you to work with him on this, but the hard part will be signing every single one of those before you’re even allowed to know, let alone see, why you’re here.”

Silence filled the room as three pairs of very different eyes stared him down. He read through each page, probably not as thoroughly as any representation would have liked, but enough to know that the agreements themselves weren’t giving away any detail of this secret project.

“Why me?” 

Will answered. “Greg, you were the only other reporter in that hellhole with a soul. You only worked with informants and contacts and contracts that were legit and never once compromised your articles to get closer to the front page. You were consistent with facts and the only guy that would collaborate with me on anything because I was a huge pain in the ass.”

“Was?” The stoic, grey-haired man joked with a smile crooking the corner of his mouth, Will flashing an annoyed look across the table.

Doubt nibbled at the edges of his mind and hampered his ability to make the decision quickly, but his heart and mouth both wanted him to sign as fast as humanly possible. Thankfully, his brain was the cautious one of the three. “Can...could I have some kind of hint?”

“Trust me, you want to do this,” Will enticed.

As many times as he read them, the N.D.A.’s didn’t change, and he found himself right back at the beginning of the problem no matter which way he circled. He reached into the bag and pulled out a pen, and once all lines that required a signature were signed, he exhaled a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. Closing the folder and sliding it across the table to Kendall, he turned expectant eyes on his friend and saw a bright smile lighting up Will’s face.

It was Jack that spoke next, and Greg felt that the temperature in the room had dropped a few degrees. “If you break any of these, Mister Thomas, you won’t get a chance to realize the mistake you’ve made.”

“Jesus, Jack,” Will interjected, Greg flashing him with eyes that screamed  _ ‘what have I done?’  _ “I need you to do an interview. You would stay here while doing research with me, conduct background interviews, write everything for approval, and then we’ll do it live on a worldwide television broadcast.”

Greg frowned in confusion. “An interview? Who the hell would I be interviewing that would require nearly a dozen N.D.A.’s?”

Kendall spoke with a clear and confident voice, “Sydney Bristow.”

You could hear a pin drop. 

The others in the room waited for the man’s reaction. He surprised them all with a sharp outburst of a single laugh. “Don’t screw with me.”

“It’s not a joke,” Kendall promised.

Will chuckled under his breath as Greg's jaw went slack, a shaky hand removing the glasses from his face.

"Are...is this...seriously?"

Will nodded, "seriously. That's why I can't do it myself."

"Are you in, Mister Thomas?" Kendall asked before sliding another folder over, Greg’s hand stopping it from falling off the edge of the table and into his lap, but just barely.

Still-shaking fingers lifted it enough to peek inside, and he was surprised to see just a single sheet of paper on C.I.A. letterhead,  **CONTRACT** typed boldly at the top. It was very simple. He was basically agreeing that the work would be the property of the American government but that a copy would be usable in his portfolio. His eyes got stuck on a single sentence near the end, reading it over and over as his head continued to spin.

_ 'I, Gregory David Thomas, hereby agree to any and all stipulations brought forward or drawn up after the signature of this initial contract, by one: Sydney Bristow.' _

The weight of this revelation came crashing down on him, heavy burdens pushing his shoulders down into a slump. Tears filled his eyes as he looked back up at his friend, and the excitement that was once abundant quickly shifted at the distraught sheen in Greg’s glistening eyes.

“I watched her die, man. You’re serious about this?”

Will set a hand to Greg’s shoulder and nodded. “I wouldn’t lie to you; not about this. You in?”

Sniffling and wiping his nose with the back of his hand, he nodded.

**…**


	29. The Interview of a Lifetime

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [](https://www.flickr.com/photos/190971129@N06/50607549128/in/dateposted/)

A/N: Apologies for the last few chapters being so long! I just have so much to put in and get to the FLUFFY BITS! Thank you so much for sticking it out with me. My brain is so very excited to write the fluffy bits, it’s been poking me with ideas and cute moments for a while, and I can finally stop pushing it aside.

  
  


**Part 29**

“You don’t have to be nervous,” Sydney said as Will attached the small clip-on microphone to the folded collar of the button-up shirt, the top two buttons undone as she sat casually across from the other fidgeting journalist.

Greg laughed, but even that seemed nervous. “I’m sorry. I just spent two weeks learning everything about you. You’re like...a legend.”

He could tell that his words had made her uncomfortable, so he backpedaled. “I mean...this is just...the weirdest interview I’ve ever done and I don’t want to screw it up.”

Sydney chuckled, Will moving to Greg and making sure the microphone attached to the edge of his tie was secure before stepping around the cameras to the recording booth behind the pane of glass that separated the two rooms.

The walls around the pair were shrouded with black curtains and they were about six feet apart, each in front of their own camera-laden tripod. Sydney watched Greg furiously read over the pages on his lap, her hands straightening the cream-colored shirt, the feminine cut hugging her curves and contrasting the charcoal grey dress pants. Greg had gone full business formal, a black blazer and blue tie over a deep navy vest and a crisp, white oxford, and as the sweat beaded on his brow, he knew he’d overdressed.

“Are...are  _ you _ nervous?”

He looked surprised when she nodded. “I have no idea if any of this is going to do what I hope it does, but I can’t live in a basement for the rest of my life. This will probably be easier than having every person I meet point and wonder where they’ve seen me before.”

“Well, hopefully, we’ll be able to help with that,” Will interjected as he came in from the booth. “You both sound good in the mics and we have about four minutes until we go live. Any last requests?”

“Lots of alcohol,” Greg mumbled as he flipped through his many pages of notes, and the others laughed. “Will is going to be in my ear feeding me random follow-up questions if they're needed, but everything he and Vaughn have approved is right here. At any point, if you don’t want to answer the question, all you have to do is say so, okay?”

The professional mode he slipped into made it seem like a new person was sitting before her, and she flashed a smile before nodding. “Got it.”

“CNN is going to do an introduction - but...they don’t know what they’re introducing, so it’s going to sound awkward. You’ll hear it in the earpiece, Greg, but I’ll put it through the speakers for you, Syd, and then mute them once you’re live to prevent any feedback.”

Will headed back into the production booth and closed the door behind him, Greg taking a few deep breaths through his nose before whooshing it between tight lips, the business-man slipping away as he flew headlong back toward a nervous day-one intern. Sydney jumped in to help calm him down.

"Take the jacket off. Trust me, it'll help."

Her voice was soft but commanding, and he found his arms obeying before his brain realized that she'd told him to do something. He tossed it across the room out of the way and had to admit that it felt a thousand times better without it on.

“You’ve got this. Just remember, if I really don’t like it, you’ll take my place in the basement.”

He glared with a grin, “that’s not funny.”

Her giggle forced him to release a breath he hadn’t known he was holding. “It’s a little funny. Seriously, relax. Yes - this is a big deal. For you and me both. Dwelling on that won’t make it any less of a big deal. Go opposite of the worry and opposite of the fear.”

“I...don’t know how-”

“Sixty seconds,” Will interrupted over the speakers in the room.

“Shit.” The young man was in a full panic mode, closing his eyes and mumbling to himself as he tried reciting his opening lines.

"Greg," leaning forward, she set a hand to his knee and pulled his attention with honest brown eyes, “if I can sit in that chair for six days, you can make it through this interview. There's no way this is harder than that, right?”

The dimple on her right cheek poked in a bit as she kinked the corner of her mouth upward, his eyes going wide when she put their current situation into some perspective.

"Five, four, three," Will went silent, but they finished in their minds as the opening music for the CNN program played over the speakers. 

"Good evening, this is Newsnight for April 8th, 2003. I'm your host Anderson Cooper sitting in for Aaron Brown who will return tomorrow. Our show tonight has been advertised for what feels like a solid forty-eight hours, and yet…I'm at as much a loss as you. I join you tonight as both host and excited viewer as we go live with a broadcast so secret," dramatic pause, "not even the president knows its subject."

The speakers in the room muted as Greg sat up straight in the chair. He took one last deep breath before focusing on his notes. For Sydney, the conversation was one-sided, and butterflies bounced around her stomach while she waited. 

“We go now to an affiliate in Los Angeles, Mister Greg Thomas.”

“Thank you, Anderson.”

“Mister Thomas, we’re all very curious about this broadcast. Are you able to shed any light now that we’re live?”

“Do you recall what you were doing on August 18th, 2002?”

Though the people in the room couldn’t see it, Will watched on the small, muted television in the booth as the famed CNN journalist shifted uncomfortably in his seat before looking down and shuffling the pages of his notes.

“I had the unfortunate duty of being live on the air that night.”

Greg nodded. “I myself was sitting at home with yet another take-out dinner, my eyes glued to the television as the whole, horrible six days came to a tragic end. I remember those long two or three minutes where no one, not even you, made a sound. I feel that everyone remembers where they were and what they were doing when Sydney Bristow died, and the immense feelings of heartbreak that followed.”

Whether it was to liven up the mood or cover his emotions, the CNN host spoke up. “We’ve done dozens of programs covering every angle of that situation. What more could you have to add?”

“I’ve spent the last two weeks with Agent Bristow’s friends, family, and coworkers in an effort to really understand who she was and what she did  _ before _ she became the woman in that chair. It’s been an incredible experience, but...none more incredible than getting my chance to sit  _ with  _ her and ask every burning question in the minds of every...single...American.”

“I’m sorry,” Anderson loosed a surprised chuckle, “could you clarify your statement, Mister Thomas?”

“We’ve all been traumatized by the  _ ‘where we were’ _ moments. Where were you when Kennedy was assassinated, or Martin Luther King Junior? Where were you when Armstrong walked on the moon or when the Berlin Walls came down? Where were you when the towers fell? This will be the first time, but hopefully not the last in human history that we can replace the question of ‘where were you when Sydney Bristow died’, with ‘where were you when she reintroduced herself to the world’.”

Will switched from Greg’s camera to Sydney’s, grinning at the open-mouthed gape from the news anchor. 

“Tonight, we sit with Sydney Bristow. That’s it; that’s the whole program. I hope now that the secrecy makes sense.” Greg flashed a smile, a bit of his confidence boosted by the relaxed pose of his interviewee. “Good evening, Sydney. It really is an honor to sit with you.”

“Thank you for the time and opportunity.”

“The first and most obvious thing to get out of the way,” Greg started, looking down at the front page of notes and then right back up to her eyes, “you’re not dead.”

She laughed, “I’m not physically dead. On paper, I’m dead.”

“Why is that?”

“It had to be that way, whether or not I got out of that room.”

Greg nodded, “so what we saw wasn’t the whole truth?”

Sydney paused for a moment, her eyes sliding to the side as she carefully chose her words. Meeting his once more with a revered softness, “I would love to tell you and everyone else watching that it didn’t end the way you saw, but it did.”

“You died.”

She nodded. “Our director made the impossible decision to wait out the camera. I can honestly tell you that...I wouldn’t have been able to make that call, even though it was the right one to make. What you all saw was real; I died in that chair. But,” she paused, a dimpled smile breaking the somber air, “there’s always more to the truth. My team was outside waiting, and the moment the feed went down,” Sydney snapped her fingers for emphasis, “they were there.”

Greg commented, “you were revived.”

Another nod. “A couple times. You can’t lose three-quarters of the blood in your body without some...complications.”

“What was your first thought when you woke up?”

_ ‘Ooh, good question.’ _ She had been most nervous about the comprehensive list of questions he had in tow. Clearly he was as thorough as Will had made him out to be, but she was relying on the trust of the two that knew her best that Greg wasn’t going to hit her with any 'gotcha' moments.

“Confusion doesn’t really cut it, but it’s as close as I can get. I genuinely didn’t understand who I was, where I was” she paused, “when it was.”

“How long were you out?”

“Forty-two days.”

Greg balked, somewhat staged, for the camera. “Forty-two days?”

“Yep,” she grinned. 

“What’s the  _ last _ thing you remember?”

_ ‘Another good one.’ _

A sad smile hit her lips as a shadow darkened her eyes. “I remember it all. I’m one of those unlucky few that are hard-wired to not block or forget under...intense circumstances. The last thing I remember is saying goodbye.”

Greg winced. “Have you watched any of the footage? On the news or in...another capacity?”

“No,” she answered honestly.

“Really?”

Sydney nodded. “You can’t let it go if that’s where you choose to live.”

“How did you get through it?  _ Any _ of it?”

“It was my job. We’re trained to get through it.”

“Not  _ that _ . Nothing like that.”

The want to skip the question bubbled up from her stomach, but she pushed it back down. This wasn’t a hard one, and it was so early in line. Charging up behind the want to change the subject was emotion, and her eyes flitted over to the camera that sat before her, the red light to the left of the lens giving her comfort much like it had back in that room.

“The red light.”

He was confused and it showed on his face. Greg had spent two weeks talking with everyone but her, and he’d been working day and night with Will and Vaughn to perfect the list of questions. It only took him five to go off-sheet asking how she got through it all, and this was a different direction than what was on the page, and also the first time he was pushing. Will’s voice in his ear bolstered his confidence as he jumped in with,  _ ‘that’s exactly what I would have asked. Follow it up.’ _

“What’s...what’s the red light?”

She laughed as a light sheen of tears shone in the directional lights. “On the cameras, the red light shows when it’s recording, or in this case,” she gestured at their current cameras, “broadcasting. It was the same on the camera that had been set up. Very quickly I found comfort in that stupid red light. It was the only thing I had telling me that I wasn’t alone.”

Greg let her statement hang for a moment, Will chirping into his ear,  _ ‘write this down for follow-up: how did you get through the two days without the camera being on?’ _ He winced but obeyed, his pen scratching a note on the next page. That might be one he didn’t ask.

She continued. “The rest of it was training. My father saw very quickly that his job with the C.I.A. as a lead on several projects could make his family a target. When I was little, my dad put me through mental tests to help me with compartmentalization, distraction, and awareness. Part of my hardwiring was his doing, and the rest was training once I started my job.”

“Training with the C.I.A.?”

Sydney shook her head, catching him off guard. “Training with the organization that captured and tortured me.”

His blue eyes met hers quickly and conveyed that he clearly hadn’t been brought up to speed on whatever she was mentioning. She laughed, de-escalating his panic, “I know a lot of it is still classified, but it’s well-known that I was a double agent. I was originally recruited by an organization that called themselves a black ops. division of the C.I.A. That’s how they worked - on a lie.”

“That seems risky.”

Sydney shrugged, “not as much risk as you would think. The organization was made up of a board of directors of ex-government employees, mostly military or intelligence, from around the world. They had a finger in every pie and recruited whole offices of people under the guise of representing that country’s intelligence. Plausible deniability was their bread and butter, and no matter how intelligent the officer, every question was answered with the i’s dotted and the t’s crossed.”

“So you worked with the C.I.A. to bring them down?”

“Not at first,” she admitted. “I worked for them for seven years before I learned the truth; before I switched to the side I thought I was on the whole time. And after eighteen months of finally doing the right thing, I guess I pushed enough buttons,” she laughed.

“You said that they  _ were _ an organization, and that was how they  _ worked _ . Is this past tense rhetoric why you’re comfortable making this announcement tonight?”

Another bright dimpled smile and nod. “Just because I’ve been dead doesn’t mean that I wasn’t working. I spent almost five months doing as much as I could from a hidden bunker and access only to half a dozen people that knew I was even alive. Honestly, I didn’t do much, but they let me feel like I was still part of the team.”

“Pardon the child-like question, but the bad guys went down, right?”

Another chuckle. “If anything, they learned the hard way what an office full of sad, angry people does with their time after a colleague is brutally murdered. I’m proud of the work my office did in those short months, not only because it gets me out of the basement, and not in any proverbial way, but it saved countless more lives.”

This time, it was Greg that smiled approvingly. “Tell me about your recovery.”

She blew a chuckle of air between pursed lips, “ _ that _ was the hard part. I had some understanding of the damage that had been done, but it was so much harder than I thought it would have been.”

Frowning, he pointed his pen toward her with a squint to his eyes and a grin on his lips, “ _ some _ ?”

This made her laugh, her shoulders relaxing. She hadn’t realized until that moment that the tenseness was sneaking up on her. “Okay, a  _ lot _ . I forget that everyone was essentially there with me, and for a long time, I struggled with that.”

“Struggled with that how?”

“Since the day I had been recruited, I was trained in secrecy. I lived for years as a spy while all of my friends thought I worked at a bank, and for eighteen months at the tail end, I was a double agent. I spilled one secret, one time, and it got my fiance killed, so,” she paused, “secrets were my entire life. In six days, everyone knew who I was; everyone knew what I did; everyone knew what happened. I...didn’t have secrets any longer. That’s a hard one-eighty.”

“I’ll bet.”

“My recovery was definitely physical. I took the beating of a couple of lifetimes and then laid on my back for a month and a half. My body took around four months before it stopped hurting just to get up from a chair or out of bed in the morning. The mental stuff progressed quicker thanks to a psychologist that refused to put up with my nonsense.”

“When you talk about your work, you call it a job. Did you ever think of it as a career?”

Sydney quickly shook her head. “Hell no. I thought it sounded exciting and, honestly, it was. I sort of miss the excitement and the rush, but I never thought it would be my career.”

“So what do you want to be when you grow up?”

They shared a laugh. “I was in school to be a teacher, just two classes shy of my Ph.D. in literature. I assumed I would finish up with my current assignment and then...go teach.”

“Do you think you still can?”

“I really hope so. I want to get out of here and put my life together. I suppose the only good thing about being dead on paper is that my student loans are gone, though I imagine they’ll find me one way or another.”

Greg flipped to a new page. “I have to ask,” he started, changing the words from what they were on the paper to something new in his head before meeting her honest gaze. “How can you ever know that you’ll be safe?”

The hardest question so far. “I don’t.”

“Then why take the risk?”

Her face softened, her eyes once again moving around the room as she thought. “I guess I’m just hoping that’s how it will be. I absolutely understand that I made enemies, and despite the fact that 99% of those enemies are never going to see the light of day again, they had friends. I got their message, and I was... _ severely  _ punished for crossing them, and I will be the first to admit that I learned my lesson.”

Leaning forward, “but?” Greg prodded.

“They got their revenge, and I would hope that would be enough.”

Greg pressed more. “What if it’s not? Do you have a plan if someone shows up at your door or, or at the grocery store?”

Sydney floundered a bit. Her father had been drilling her for months maintaining that if every loose end wasn’t tied off she shouldn’t consider leaving the facility, and this conversation was steering into that territory. It made sense, which is probably why she hated it so much.

“Secret service has been suggested and the plans are still being drawn up. If it comes down to it, I still have my training.”

“That didn’t help last time,” he countered quickly.

_ ‘Careful,’ _ Will warned in his ear.

She sighed. “Are you asking if I’ll beg to be left alone? Am I going to beg for my husband and child to be left alone? Yeah. Consider this as me doing that.”

Will jumped in again, loudly.  _ ‘Woah,  _ **_woah_ ** _. Hit that with a follow-up!’ _

“You’re married? Can dead people get married?”

_ ‘ _ **_Not that_ ** _! The  _ **_kid_ ** _ thing!’ _

Greg wrote a note on the paper, wanting to toss a glare at the other reporter in the glass box behind them but knowing he couldn’t.

“Probably not? We’ve established, however, that my life is...unique. We signed a marriage license. It’s invalid until today, I guess, but it’s been real to us for a few months.”

“You mentioned a kid? Are you...expecting?”

A slight blush hit her cheeks, but she shook her head. “N-no. I just mean in general.”

“In general?”

Sydney squeezed her lips together, looking away for a moment before meeting his eyes, “yeah. In the, in the future.”

A smile hit his lips but he breezed past seeing her sudden nervous flush. Everything inside him, including the manic voice in his ear, wanted him to push, but he moved to the next question.

“How does this undying process work?”

Sydney chuckled and tossed Greg a thankful glance, “I have no idea. I’ve done a lot of paperwork over the last few days.”

“I know you probably don’t want to announce on live television where you’re looking to live, but do you think it’ll still be in town?”

She shook her head. “Probably not. I’ve spent more than enough time in L.A., and I think it’s time to live somewhere else. Who knows, though. I’ve never come back from the dead before, so I’m not exactly sure how it’s going to work.”

“Do you know what happened to Flynn?”

The sound of his name hit her harder than she thought it would, mostly because it came out of nowhere. For a moment, she was back in that hallway behind the glass watching the unhinged, rail of a man brutalize his hands against the barrier between them. That her first memory of him wasn’t her in the chair surprised her. 

“He was arrested the moment he left the building.”

Greg’s eyebrows lifted. “Isn’t that what you said would happen?”

Sydney nodded. “He was held in our facility for a few months, some of our information for the take-down came from him in his more cooperative moments.”

“I have to ask,” he started, gesturing the hand with the pen wedged between his pointer and ring finger.

“Did I see him?”

Greg nodded.

Her nod was slow as she tried to pick through the myriad of paperwork she’d prepped on before getting Kendall to agree to this interview. Hundreds of pages of  _ ‘you don’t get to talk about this’ _ and  _ ‘this is classified, don’t mention it’ _ before his objections were reasonably pacified. Flynn was on the list, but only in the capacity that she couldn’t mention that he was in F.B.I. custody.

“I did.”

If his eyebrows could raise any higher, she assumed they would hit the ceiling. “What do you even say to the man that...killed you? I have no clue what I would say.”

The corner of her mouth tilted minutely, “I wondered the same thing. I know that victims don’t always get a chance to face their abusers, and I know that the idea once it’s floated is tantalizing. I spent a long time imagining that I’d tied him to a chair and put him through all the same things he’d done to me, but...I didn’t have that hatred any longer. I don’t really know where it went, but the moment I saw him, I felt pity.”

“Pity? Did you at least get to punch him in the face?”

Sydney laughed but shook her head. “No, no punching. When all was said and done, and all of his power had been taken away, he was a scrawny, sad man in a cage. I get to walk free from that life because I decided  _ not  _ to be a bad guy. In the end, he knew I’d won and he’d lost, and I think that was closure enough.”

Greg nodded and looked down at his pages, peeking back up when she let out an airy chuckle, “though I’m sure punching him in the nose again would have been  _ very _ satisfying.”

“So you’re done? With everything here?”

She nodded, and the relaxed look on her face made him feel warm. “I did everything I could and, even with a snag, it worked out for the better.”

“You’re amazing,” Greg interrupted.

“I am not amazing. I got lucky.”

“You’re not like finding a nickel on the street, or...or losing your wallet to have it turned in with nothing missing. You’re an amazing person, you’ve overcome amazing things, and I for one am very excited to be the first to welcome you back to society with open arms. If...if you have anything else to say, the stage is yours.”

Sydney thought long and hard, swallowing the lump rising in the back of her throat, another light sheen of tears falling over her bright brown eyes. “I meant everything I said in that room. I had no regrets that I was taking one for the team,” she turned to look into the lens, “and it was a genuine privilege to put myself between people like them and people like you. If we went back in time...I wouldn’t do a single thing differently.”

Turning back to Greg, her face was bright and cheery, her finger catching a small tear as it pooled at the edge of her eye. “Now it’s my turn. I gave everything, and now I have a chance to get it all back. I can’t waste it in hiding; I can’t live in hiding. So I’ll take the risk that to the good guys who’ll get stuck protecting me when I’m out there, I’m worth the time. To the bad guys that might still be out there, I hope I’ve earned enough respect. Understand that I won’t be a threat if they won’t.”

Greg chuckled. “You did take down a worldwide crime syndicate in record time from a basement while you were dead. Thank you for sitting with me, and I genuinely hope for the best to fall into your lap. You deserve it more than most.” Turning back to the camera, “from Los Angeles, I’m Greg Thomas.”

**…**

The rotunda was packed with at least two dozen swarmed around the monitors as the interview took place. What started as Jack and Vaughn hovering nervously ended up with the two of them sneaking to the back of the crowd as excited conversation wafted about. 

Jack was still terrified that this was a bad idea, but he knew his hands were tied. While his daughter assumed that he wanted her to spend the rest of her life safe in a bunker, that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Did he want her safe? Of course. Did he have a reason to be scared? They all did. He knew he didn’t hold a monopoly on worry, and this was confirmed as he side-eyed Michael Vaughn. The young man stood beside him with one arm crossed over his chest, the other propped at the elbow letting him hold his hand to his mouth and nervously chew on the edge of his thumbnail. 

“This was the right play, right?” Vaughn asked again, Jack’s shrug the only answer given as the elder collected his words carefully.

“It’s her play. Regardless if we think it’s right, it was her call to make. As she so eloquently told me last week, she doesn’t plan on living the rest of her life downstairs and she’ll force my hand to let her go if need be.”

Michael knew full well what backed her threat but kept that knowledge to himself. “Maybe this wasn’t the right play,” he muttered behind his poor, battered thumbnail as the two continued to watch.

Jack chuckled. “You’re not going to have a thumb left by the end of this interview, son. Calm down. Every time I’ve doubted my daughter, she’s proven me wrong. I suppose the lesson would be to stop doubting her, but...I have my doubts.”

Sighing deep and wincing at the state of his thumbnail, Vaughn dropped his hand to fold with the other arm back across his chest. “Everything will be fine. We still have a couple of weeks before making any kind of move. She’s agreed to take things slow. That’s got to count for something, right?”

_ “How can you ever know that you’ll be safe?” _

Greg’s question echoed the one in their minds, each wincing at the reality that loomed behind those words and both intrigued at her answer as neither had the guts to ask that one yet. Their want to pick a fight wasn’t high as she’d spent the last two days being snappy and irritable, citing the interview as her apologetic excuse.

Vaughn switched hands, the unbearable need to fidget drawing now the right hand up to his lips and the nail between his teeth. He regretted leaving his coin on the nightstand that morning.

_ “That didn’t help last time,” _ Greg countered her reliance on her training quickly.

Sydney sighed, both men having heard that sound a dozen times this week, though each instance had been followed up by a glare and a snap. This time was thankfully different, though she did answer quickly and sharply.  _ “Are you asking if I’ll beg to be left alone? Am I going to beg for my husband and child to be left alone? Yeah. Consider this as me doing that.” _

The ball of lead nerves that had been pushing onto Vaughn’s stomach bounced up and smacked his heart straight in the face. He was sure that the shock was visible, he couldn’t keep it at bay, and nearly a dozen pairs of eyes were on him in an instant. His startled gaze, however, was on his wife. Details only he would notice emerged: the sudden flush of her cheeks, her eyes widening just a bit, and her normally articulate speech stuttering after the follow-up question.

Jack setting hand to his shoulder made him jump and look up, though the father was maintaining a steely glare straight ahead. “I haven’t wanted to kill you in quite some time. Now...now is one of those times.” His hand squeezed the shoulder tight just before releasing and folding his arms across his chest.

The conversation moved on, Greg thankfully not pushing it, and vibration against his leg made him jump a second time. Pulling the phone from his pocket, “Maman” shone in bright letters. Closing his eyes and turning, he slipped down the hallway into a secluded corner and answered.

“I’m sorry, mama,” he said in quick French. “I would have warned you if I could. I...I had to keep it secret.”

She sniffled on the other end and he felt the guilt double in his soul. “Michael, I...I’m not mad, son,” she started. “I wasn’t going to call. I’m...I’m just so happy it’s turned out this way, my boy. I need you to do me a favor,” she left hanging, and he could hear Sydney’s voice over the speaker playing in the background of his mother’s living room, and he could instantly picture her in her pajamas and robe curled up on the couch downstairs with a cup of tea or wine watching his life unfold on television.

“I’m...not sure I can get away right now, mama.”

“Please, my boy? I need to see you.”

Michael frowned at the emotion he heard in her voice. “Mama, is everything okay? I know this was a shock, and I’m sorry for that-”

“No. I mean... _ yes _ . I’m fine. I just...please?”

Vaughn sighed, looking at his watch and seeing that it was just after nine-thirty. It would take around twenty minutes to get to her house, and by then Sydney’s interview would likely be over and they clearly needed to have a chat.

_ ‘But she said please.’ _

“Alright, mama, I’ll be right there.”

Jack wasn’t going to like this one bit. The baby bomb gets dropped and then all of a sudden the father disappears? That won’t look good. Looking around with panicked eyes he spotted Weiss. Darting out, he grabbed him by the arm and dragged him back to the corner.

“Congrats, dad,” his friend mocked jovially.

“Shut up. Can you...do me a favor?”

Shoving his hands into his pockets, Weiss regarded him with a curious squinting glare. “Maybe.”

“That was my mom, it’s kind of an emergency and I’m going to go check on her. Could you have Jack to go down and tell Sydney that I’ll be back as soon as I can when the interview is over?”

He wasn’t prepared for Eric’s brow to raise and his eyes and mouth to gape open. “ _ Hell _ no. There’s no way I’m doing that. She lets it slip that she’s preggers and you split? I’m not gonna be on the receiving end of Jack Bristow for that one.”

“Come on, you know that’s not what I’m doing. My mom is freaking out.”

“I’ll bet,” Weiss chuckled, dropping the goofy act at Vaughn’s glare. Raising his hands defensively, “yeah, of course. I’ll talk to Jack while you slink out the back.”

Michael bolted toward the parking garage as Eric moved back to the group, and a few minutes later, he was on the road.

_ ‘How long do you think she’s known?’ _

He pushed the car on the highway, zooming through traffic as fast as possible to shave off whatever time he could. 

_ ‘It won’t do you any good to die on the road, calm down. Sydney wouldn’t keep something like this from you for long. Odds are it’s brand new and she just…’ _

_ ‘What? Didn’t have time to tell me? All we have is time.’ _

Still, his raging thoughts were right, and he backed his foot off the pedal and slowed to just over the speed limit. He wasn’t mad at Sydney, even if she told the whole world the one secret he would have loved to keep private and just for them. He just couldn’t hide his shock. A month ago they decided they’d think about trying, and she’d worked out a three-week schedule with the doctor to slowly back off her birth control. That would give them a serious shot in a few weeks at trying around the same time they were set to move into the beach house outside town.

If Jack got cold feet all they had to do was tell him they’d already started trying. His own words of, “I won’t have a grandchild grow up in a bunker, you just need to be patient” coming back to haunt him.

Bubbles of excitement filled his stomach and boiled over into his heart making it speed up against his sternum.

“I’m gonna be a dad.” 

Saying it loud put a permanent grin on his face, one he kept spotting in the rearview mirror. Pulling into the driveway he immediately noticed that very nearly every light in the house was on, and he recalled the many times in his childhood when his mother would follow behind him turning lights off with the classic,  _ ‘what am I made of money?’  _ in ample supply.

There was a sticky-note stuck to the inside door telling him it was unlocked, and he grumbled with a frown and an eye roll before heading inside.

“Mama, you can’t leave a note on the door telling the world that it’s unlocked! I don’t care if you’re expecting me!” His French was aggravated and quick.

Her reply sounded far away, “down here, my boy!” 

“Mama?”

They played echo until he found her in the basement lost among a clutter of boxes she’d pulled haphazardly out of the spare room. That room was a treasure trove of memories, and he found her sitting in the middle on a small step stool surrounded by smaller boxes she’d pulled from the larger, an ornate jewelry box in her hands. Playing in the corner on the small television was CNN recapping Sydney’s interview, the only indication that it had ended.

“I don’t want to keep you, I know you’re very busy, but after watching that...I...I knew I had to get you a few things and it couldn’t wait.” She lifted the lid of the box and rifled with the tips of her fingers through what she’d stored, Michael grinning at the studious look on her face before flopping to his backside on the shaggy old carpet.

He was happy; he was insanely happy. Despite the shock and despite the way it was revealed, he couldn’t keep the smile from his face and honestly didn’t care who he showed. He turned to look at the broadcast wondering how long ago it had ended but knowing he’d be able to watch it a thousand times by just keeping any news channel on long enough.

An excited noise from her made him jump and refocus. 

“I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you, mama. Honestly, who would you tell? You kept the secrets of the game better than anyone, I think.” She tutted through her teeth and held out her hand, something small behind her fingers. 

Wearing a grin and a curious frown, he stretched out his arm and felt something small and metallic land in his palm. 

It was a gold ring; a wedding band. Not ostentatiously wide or overly thin, it straddled the line between masculine and feminine, and he spun it around with his thumbs and pointer fingers. The bright light from overhead hit the inside and faint engraving caught his attention. 

He read the words out loud as he squinted to make them out, “ _ ALL MY LOVE, AUGUST 18’ _ .”

“I didn’t connect it until that man doing the interview said the date out loud. Your father and I married on the eighteen of August. The...the same date.”

Michael sobered as he realized what he held in his hand. “This...this is...dad’s wedding ring.”

“I was going to give it to you when you found the right person, I just...I didn’t know you already had, else I would have given it long ago.” 

They shared a teary smile as he slid it over the ring finger on his left hand. It fit perfectly, another thing he shared in common with his father. He hadn’t yet purchased a ring, promising Sydney they’d go shopping the first day she was able, though he’d broken the pact and surprised her with the engagement ring a few days after asking.

“If she wants it, this was your grandmother’s. It’s been passed through a few generations, but I chose to match mine to your father’s. Still, it’s hers, even if it sits in a box. Tradition,” Deloreme smiled sweetly and handed him another, slimmer, band.

“She’ll love it. There aren’t many family traditions on her side,” he admitted. He planned to never tell his mother the truth of his father’s death, the truth he’d been told  _ or _ the truth he’d been given last year. He’d deemed it best to leave that dog to lie.

“Come, I’ll walk you out,” she sniffled, wiping at her eyes and picking herself up from the small stool.

They stopped in the foyer and she pulled him into a hug, his chin hitting the top of her head as he wrapped her tight against his chest. “Thank you,” he murmured, his thumb rubbing the edge of the ring as he got used to the feel.

Pulling away he pressed a kiss to her forehead, and she moved into the front room to grab something off the couch. “It’s probably too early, but,” she paused on her way back, a light blue, fuzzy blanket folded atop her hands, “this was yours.”

It was made of delightfully soft fabric, outlines of small teddy bears embroidered along the shiny, silk trim. Seeing it made his heart go back to pounding from his stomach and he realized that his mother, like most of the world, also didn’t miss Sydney’s slip during the interview.

“There’s a lot more where this came from,” she beamed, pointing a finger into the top of the blanket once it was in his hands. “Tell my daughter that I can’t wait to meet her.”

**...**

The moment the camera’s red lights were off Sydney released a pent up breath of air and fell forward with her elbows to her knees. “I gave it away,” she groaned, her hands covering her face. “I’m a spy for almost ten years yet I can’t keep it secret for  _ two hours _ .”

Will tossed the door open, “why didn’t you follow up?!” His ire was focused on Greg, the other man standing defiantly and undoing the buttons of the vest before pulling it off. 

“I didn’t need to follow up, she gave it away.”

“I did,” she groaned behind her hands, her eyes turning up to Will. “Do you think he noticed? He probably didn’t notice, right? Maybe...maybe he wasn’t watching.”

“You think Vaughn wasn’t watching your live, televised return from the dead interview that he helped put together?” His arms folded over his chest as a grin played on his lips, “ _ everyone _ noticed, Sydney. I can hear the tabloids going to print as fast as humanly possible. Greg already has an article for 500 words due on Litvak’s desk Monday morning.”

“Maybe he didn’t notice,” Greg tossed out as he gathered up his things and tried to be the one consoling voice in the room.

Sydney sighed and flopped back against the uncomfortable folding chair, “I told the whole world before my husband.”

Greg sat back down across from her with his jacket and vest lying over his lap. “Do you think he’ll be more excited than upset?”

“Oh,  _ now _ you ask a follow-up question.” Ducking the glares they tossed his way, Will went into the production booth to shut down the equipment. From the room, “Francie is more upset than Vaughn, guaranteed.”

Sydney sighed, shaking her head and changing the subject. “Thank you,” she said, turning her attention on the man beside her. “Some of those questions made me squirm, but, thanks for pushing.”

“Thanks for the opportunity. My resume looks pretty shiny after this one.”

Will flipped off the lights, he and Greg heading for the door while Sydney stayed in her seat with a furrowed brow biting at the edge of her lip. “Syd, you can’t hide here. He literally knows where you are right now.”

They slowly walked to the elevator, and though she was finally able to join them on the upper floor, she wasn’t entirely ready for a sea of people to swarm her with excited voices, hugs, and handshakes. Hitting both up and down buttons they all waited for the set to arrive. At the ding, both doors opening almost simultaneously, and Will grabbed her arm.

“Hey,” he whispered, pulling her in and pressing a kiss to the top of her head. “Congrats. For serious. I’ll talk Francie down tonight, but know she’s already planning a baby shower and you’re gonna have to be okay with that.”

Laughing, she threw her arms around his neck and held him tight. “Thank you. For everything.” Pulling back he used the back of his finger to wipe at an escaping tear as she sniffled. 

“Hormones already? Jeez.”

“Shut up,” she growled with a dimpled smile, pushing him into the elevator with Greg before stepping into the opposite. Once inside, it was just her and her thoughts.

_ ‘He absolutely noticed. It wasn’t hard to notice. Do I have an excuse?’ _ She scoffed. _ ‘An excuse for not telling him we’re pregnant? No. I never thought I’d have to come up with that one.’ _

“This whole talking to myself thing will go away when I’m out of the basement, right?” Whispering into the empty air, the machine slowed, stopped, dinged, and the doors opened. 

The hallway was empty and quiet, the bedroom door to her right slightly ajar. Poking her head in, Vaughn was nowhere to be found. Taking the blessing for what it was and realizing that he was probably stuck with the overwhelming hoard of people upstairs bombarding him with question after question, she closed the door behind her and decided to spend the time waiting curled up with a good book.

A knock at the door nearly fifteen minutes later made her jump, and she realized she’d been so engrossed in her reading that she’d missed the ding of the elevator. Looking over, she frowned, knowing it wasn’t Vaughn. Why would he knock?

“Yeah?”

Jack poked his head in, nervous to speak to her for the first time in months. “Hi, sweetheart,” he started before coming all the way in and standing awkwardly still wearing his full suit just inside the door.

Sydney grinned. “You know, you can come in and sit. Take your coat off, at least, it’s almost ten.”

The father chuckled and did just that, hanging the blazer on the hook near the door before moving in and sitting on the ottoman in front of her.

“It was...a good interview.”

She knew that was hard for him to admit as he had nearly blown his lid when she’d suggested it to him a month ago. He’d gone along with the planning, but only if he was allowed to set parameters and have the ability to veto the whole thing any step along the way.

“That couldn’t have been easy to say, so...thanks for saying it,” she said sitting up and casting her book to the side table.

“How long have you and Vaughn kept your little secret?” He couldn’t hold the question back as it was the only thing he wanted to ask. Jack had thought of nothing but her sentence since the moment it had left her lips.

_ ‘I have a way of forcing your hand dad, but don’t make me do it just for that.’ _

“Was pregnancy really the only thing you could think of to get me to sign off on your release?” His steely blue gaze was hurt, Sydney surprised to see that he was being so open with the truth of how he felt.

“Dad,” she started, lifting up she folded her legs underneath her while gathering her thoughts. “We didn’t do this to spite you, I promise. This was...something we were planning anyway, it just happened earlier than we thought.”

“Too early for Vaughn to even know?”

“Tonight. I...got the call tonight, about an hour before the interview.”

Jack shook his head as he tried to temper what he wanted to say with what he felt should and shouldn’t be said. She recognized his want to revert to his old school, overprotective, colder self and decided that he’d earned the right.

“Go ahead, dad. You don’t have to hold back.”

His face twisted in disappointment. “Do you think  _ this  _ would make things easier? How could you both be so  **careless** !”

Though the concept of being a mom was brand new, Sydney felt protective and she pushed back. “Well, I’m sorry we didn’t consult you, but I don’t have to do that with  _ these _ aspects of my life.”

He rose and paced a few feet away. “Do you know how hard it is going to be to protect you when you’re out there?”

“Do  _ you _ ?” She stayed seated.

Jack faltered a little. “Sydney…” he trailed off once again trying to keep from ruining the entire night, but slipping back into their argumentative relationship felt easier than trying to be understanding at the moment.

“Why can’t you just accept that you don’t get to control every aspect of my life, dad?”

“Your life was better when it was under my control,” he fired back loudly, surprising them both.

Sydney frowned, “when was that? When I was five?”

“You’ve made reckless decisions before, but this? This is…” Letting the accusation fall short yet again and his hands fell akimbo to his waist as he stared down his defiant daughter.

What he didn’t predict was the realization to hit her face.

“What?” he snapped.

She spoke softly, but he heard each word. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“That’s...I’m not even,” he let out a nervous chuckle trying to alleviate the tension he felt winding in his stomach. “ **That’s** not what I’m talking about.”

“Yes it is. What happened to me was  _ my  _ fault, no one else’s. Not yours, not Vaughn’s,” she paused and rose, sliding her hands into the pockets of the comfortable cotton pajama pants, “mine.”

They’d never talked through most of his feelings surrounding her time spent with Mister Flynn, and Sydney had relegated herself into accepting that her father was going to deal with it on his own and would come to her if he thought it was needed, and not a moment before.

The moment was now.

“Do you honestly think I don’t know that? I don’t want you to make the same mistake that…”

“That you did? If you hadn’t fallen in love with her, I would never have been born and you wouldn’t have to live with watching me die. Is...that about right?”

“Sydney, I-” dropping his arms to hang limply at his sides, he felt his icy exterior start to melt, though the angry fire replacing it may not be any better for the situation.

“Dad, I’ve carried the weight of your regret for almost two years, but I won’t let you make me regret this.” The accent to her point was her hand flattening against her stomach. “ _ This _ wasn’t an accident. The timing is off, but it’s what we want. A new house, a new life,” she chuckled past the tears filling her eyes, “ _ this _ new life. Dad, I can’t do any of it without you. I need you on my side for this.”

“What if,” he paused, his words strangled behind the emotion building in his throat as the feelings he’d been repressing for months were beginning to escape from the holding cell behind his heart. Shaking his head, he stopped, though she could see the quiver of his chin and the extra shine in his eyes. “What if I’m not there when...if…”

Every feature she had softened as she watched her father try and hold back the tide. 

“It wasn’t your fault,” she repeated.

Jack shook his head and kept his eyes looking at everything but his daughter. His steely exterior was fighting back against this new, softer, Bristow. “I’m... _ angry _ , Sydney.”

“About what?”

He glared, “at  _ you _ .” 

“Why?”

“You knew better than that -  **this** . Than  _ this. _ ”

He wanted her to fight him, it was truly the only real relationship he’d had with her. While they had been honest and cordial over the last few months, in the end, it always felt a little awkward. At least it had for him.

“It’s okay that you’re mad at me, dad. It was my fault.”

The hands at his sides balled into fists. “ **No** ! It’s... **not** okay. None of it...was okay. You just...you never  **listen** ! And now,” he gestured with open palms toward her, though she was still standing before the chair with her hands back in her pockets looking at him with soft, gentle eyes. “This  _ child  _ is a  **liability** , Sydney!”

Gentle brown flashed darker in an instant. “Be careful,” she whispered. “There’s plenty that can be said between us that can’t ever be taken back.”

Jack didn’t heed her warning. “You’ve been  **my** liability my whole career, Sydney, and I’ve hated every moment of worry...and fear. I don’t know what to do with any of it now, and...and you’ve told the whole world that you’re alive! I don’t know how to  _ fix _ ...this.” His chest heaved as he stared, though Sydney didn’t seem intent on speaking. Much to his growing chagrin, he continued. 

“How on Earth could you have thought a baby to be an acceptable risk, Sydney Anne?”

Silence fell between them again, and mercifully, he stopped talking. Through it all, her eyes stayed glued on him from where she stood while his darted to and from hers time and time again.

“The only time I felt alone that week were the two days he interrogated me without the camera,” she started in a quiet yet firm voice. His reaction was immediate physical pain that balled his hands back into fists with one pressing against his stomach.

“Don’t.”

“I wasn’t lying in the interview when I said that I clung to that red light on the camera. I had this...mantra I would say in my head every time it turned on. The light was love; the light was home; the light was Vaughn-”

“ **Don’t** ,” he growled, though it sounded like a gravelly, watery beg.

“That light was my dad. And when it wasn’t there? When I was alone? It felt like darkness...overwhelming emptiness. You’ve never really been a  _ part  _ of my life; you’ve always been there, just...pushed into the background. That was a choice and it wasn’t just one of us that made it, we both know that.” She took a step forward, her eyes still boring into his, and Jack was transfixed, unable to look away.

“But I’ve never felt  _ without _ you until those two days.”

“Stop,” his whisper was strangled, and he felt his pounding heart squeezed in his chest.

“You’re mad that I got myself caught, and that’s okay. You’re mad that it wasn’t you, and that’s okay. You were mad when you picked me up at three in the morning dead drunk during senior year, mad when I was recruited into SD-6, and mad when I slept with Vaughn when he was my handler, and all of that is okay. But right now? You’re not mad,” she said decisively, stopping her slow walk a couple of feet away from where he shook above his locked knees.

“Yes...I am,” he defended, though, at the moment, he wasn’t sure what he was feeling other than like he was suffocating.

Sydney shook her head and pulled one hand from a pocket to reach out and take his fist, slowly loosening his tight grip and freeing his fingers. “You’re  **scared** .  _ So am I _ . Right now, I’m scared to take the elevator  _ up _ . I’m terrified of stepping foot outside this building, and I don’t know how I’m going to do any of that, let alone move away.”

Jack couldn’t hide the shocked confusion from his face as he tried to blink his watery vision away and get every ounce of raging turmoil inside back into the bottle. “Then why?”

“Because  _ this _ ,” she took his hand and placed the tips of his fingers against her stomach, “ _ this _ doesn’t scare me.  _ This _ ,” she held her other hand up and spun the engagement ring with her thumb, “ _ this _ doesn’t scare me. What  _ does _ is the idea that,” she took a shuddering breath, “you won’t be there to do any of it with me.”

The pooling drops back held for so long in his crystalline blue eyes cascaded down his stubbled cheeks to his quivering chin, and with one step he engulfed her against his chest. She clung to him tightly feeling his shoulders bounce as he sobbed into her hair. Shedding a few of her own tears into the cotton of his shirt, the familiar scent of his cologne hit her nose catapulting her back in time. Him holding her when she broke her leg; her tucked against his side as he read Peter Pan in the ridiculously tiny child’s bed; her when she’d thrown her arms around him the moment he’d stepped off the elevator the night the Alliance fell. 

Calming minutes later, he loosened his hold, unprepared for her to pull back and cup his cheeks to keep him in place. 

“I love you, daddy, and I genuinely can’t do the rest of my life without you. I have  _ no idea _ what to do with a baby,” she laughed through her sob and wiped at his tears with the pads of her thumbs. “We can get over the fear together, I promise.”

Jack nodded between her hands, sniffling against the runny nose, and stepped away. He didn’t trust his voice, so he stiffly moved to the door and grabbed his blazer, looping it over his arm. Leaning back in he pressed a soft kiss to the top of her head before leaving.

The steps toward the elevator were slow, though halfway there, it dinged. Out stepped Michael Vaughn, the silly smile on his face slipping away as he turned to see the tear-stained cheeks of Jack Bristow, truly a sight he’d never seen.

_ ‘Oh shit,’ _ he thought. The two stared for a moment before Jack moved to walk past. As he did, he reached out his hand and set it flat against Michael’s chest over his thudding heart. Pressing it there for a moment before releasing, the elder stepped onto the elevator and the doors closed between them.

Something must be wrong. “Syd?” He called, hurrying down the hall to the open door to find her standing near the reading chair wiping at her cheeks with a kleenex.

“Hey,” she said quietly, the emotion still built up behind her voice.

“Is...are...is everything okay? I just passed your dad and...he looked, uh,” he left off, not wanting to say  _ broken _ , but thinking it heavily.

She shrugged and cast a genuine smile. “Yeah. We just...had a heart to heart. What’s that? Where have you been?”

Sydney’s eyes were on the blue blanket he had fisted in his hand, momentarily forgotten. “My mom had...called, she needed me to come by. Did...Jack not tell you? I asked him to tell you that I’d be back a little later.”

Shaking her head, she shrugged. “That’s okay. How - how did your mom take the news?”

“Which news, that I’m married, or that we’re having a baby?”

Surprise dropped her jaw as a pained huff of air left her open lips. “God, I’m sorry, Vaughn. I just...I’d known for like, two hours and I just…”

He waved her off and reached for her hand, Sydney giving it willingly and stepping into his frame, their lips meeting for a soft, sweet kiss. “You don’t owe me an apology, sweetie. Don’t think I’m anything but excited. A little shocked,” she mumbled her agreement behind another kiss and stepped back.

“I have a surprise for you,” he grinned and held up his left hand, the band shining in the light. “I know we were going to go shopping but...my mom gave it to me. It was dad’s.”

New tears sprouted, “it’s perfect.”

“Also...she gave me this,” he said, holding out another band in his palm. “Family tradition, it’s always given to the new wife. It’s yours whether it’s worn or sits in a jewelry box.” 

In awe, she took it into her fingers delicately, as if it was the most fragile thing she’d ever held. “It’s beautiful,” she sighed, replacing the engagement ring with the new band and letting it catch the light on her finger with a wiggle.

“She doesn’t even know me,” Sydney said softly, and they both felt the weight behind the admission. 

Setting the blanket on the desk he moved around behind to wrap his arms around her, his palms settling over her lower stomach. “She told me to tell her daughter that she can’t wait to meet her,” he said reverently before pressing a kiss to the top of her shoulder. 

Rubbing her cheek against his, they stood together until a yawn broke the moment, Sydney setting the back of her hand over her mouth to try and hide it as Michael chuckled when he yawned almost immediately in response.

Calling it a day they readied for bed, Vaughn spooning behind her once under the blankets as his free hand settled flat under her belly button again, hers joining as they drifted to sleep.

**...**


	30. Epilogue Part 1: We're Gonna Plan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [](https://www.flickr.com/photos/190971129@N06/50611168356/in/dateposted/)   
> 

**Epilogue: Part 1**

Four weeks later 

"If you get up with me every time, you'll be just as tired during the day. I'm fine, just...stay in bed. One of us should get some sleep," she grumbled into the bowl as Michael knelt behind her with his knees on either side of her slumped body.

"But then I'd miss all the fun," he chuckled and held back her hair, Sydney groaning as she retched again, the scant amount of water she'd been trying to keep down ending up coming right back out.

Settling back, they took up their nightly spot against the wall in the shining new bathroom, the large windows facing west as the moon and stars reflected in the waves washing back and forth.

"I really love this view," she whispered, his hands settling in his usual spot over her still-flat stomach, hers dropping against his forearms as they reclined together.

Michael had moved in a pillow to rest opposite of the toilet after her first few nights of morning sickness, the two of them learning that _morning_ was a relative term. Between ten at night and two in the morning, Sydney usually had one or two bouts that left her running to the bathroom. Fortunately, every west-facing wall in the beach home was almost entirely made of glass, and the view of the Pacific was spectacular.

“Your stomach seems settled, let’s go have some tea,” he suggested quietly after a bit and pressed a kiss to the side of her head. Weaving around unpacked boxes in the living room, both taking a moment to appreciate the view after spending months in a basement, she sat at the table as he flipped on the electric kettle and readied the peppermint tea.

“Hey, thanks for letting me help with the analysis you’re working on. I’m...kind of losing my mind to boredom.”

“I can ask your dad to send some extra work over, he won’t mind.” Dropping the tea bag into the empty mug he leaned against the dark marble countertop and crossed his arms loosely over his chest.

Sydney sighed and shook her head before propping it up on her palm and leaning heavily over the hardwood table. Her other hand rubbed the sore muscles of her stomach as it grumbled with another bout of queasiness. 

“No.”

Michael laughed. “Sweetie, just ask.”

“I said I didn’t need the job.”

“You don’t need the job but you want the work. Don’t get me wrong, my analysis is getting done so fast they think I’m a god. Kendall actually asked why he had me field-rated in the first place.”

That made her laugh, though she regretted it as it made her stomach flip. The kettle boiled and clicked to turn off. Hints of peppermint filled the air as Vaughn poured water over the bag and stirred it around. Bringing the cup to the table he pressed a kiss to her clammy forehead and slid another chair closer before flopping down.

“No one would blame you for feeling a bit bored, but it’s only been a week since we moved in. If you’re going crazy already…” he left it off and mirrored her by propping his head up in the same fashion.

Another sigh. “I just...if I can’t live without that job, what’s the point of getting out?”

“Sydney, it’s all your choice. You can literally do whatever you want to do, you’re not trapped here. What do you want to do? I’ll make it happen.”

She smiled sweetly at his frustration, knowing that it was stemming from the many conversations they’d been having about the future in the last few days. “I know you would, it’s just...not that easy.”

“The last two classes you need for your degree are self-paced and start in two weeks, and that’s really going to help. After that? Boom. Professor Vaughn,” he grinned and spread his hands wide as if he was envisioning her name in lights. “You’ll be ruling the classroom before you know it.”

Sydney shrugged. “I don’t know if I want to start teaching just to take time off after the baby. Maybe...maybe I wait a year,” she paused, “or two.”

Vaughn frowned. “Why put it off? It’s not like teachers don’t have babies, I’m sure they’ll be fine with it.”

Breaking eye contact, she looked down as her fingers played with the square of paper attached to the string of the teabag. Another shrug. “It’s our first kid and I don’t have a clue what to do. I don’t want to add a job I also don’t know how to do on top of all that.”

Vaughn reached out his free hand and set it to her lower arm. “Syd, you’re at the point in your life that if you don’t want to do something, you don’t have to. Are you getting cold feet about teaching? Or,” his heart caught in his throat, but he had to ask, “or the baby?”

Turbulent brown eyes flashed up to his suddenly worried face, “god, no. No, no, no, no. I...I’m so excited about this kid, I promise. It’s just,” she paused and looked away again, her eyes drifting to the waves outside thankful for the millionth time that week that almost every room in the place faced west. Why own a beach house to look inland?

It all seemed simpler outside. Waves washed up over the sand, the grains tumbling back and forth to cover and uncover shells and other treasures. Stars and moons and planets twinkled overhead as the vast expanse of water stretched outward and the horizon sank into black oblivion.

“It’s just…” he prodded and pulled her back from her drifting thoughts.

“What if the only thing I was good at was being a spy?” Finally saying out loud what had been eating at her the most made her feel both better and worse.

Vaughn rejected her worry outright. “No way. You’re gonna be a great teacher.” As she brought her timid gaze back up, he realized it wasn’t the teaching part that was giving her grief.

“I... _never_ had a real mother, at least not one I can remember. I don’t know the first thing about kids other than how _not_ to raise them, and honestly...that doesn’t seem good enough. I also...don’t know how to teach,” she gave an airy, disappointed chuckle and refocused on the teabag string.

“Me either. I never even babysat and...kids have always terrified me. Despite it all, I think we turned out okay.”

She grinned, “If okay means that when things get tough I know I can drive my car into a river and fake my death. Come on,” she shook her head looking back outside.

“That’s dark, sweetie,” Michael said, pulling a chuckle from her chest. “Hey,” he started, squeezing her wrist and getting her attention, “we have another eight months to figure it out. That’s way more time than either of us need. And you don’t have to teach until you’re ready. If you want to wait until the kid is thirty, I don’t care. I just want you to be happy, Sydney.”

“What about you? If I decide to teach now or after they're born, what will you do? You shouldn’t be stuck not doing what you want, Michael. Would being a stay at home dad even make you happy?”

“Yeah,” he said quickly, smiling at the surprise on her face. “Absolutely.”

“But...you just said you don’t know the first thing about kids.”

“I don’t,” he sat up and leaned back against the chair and shrugged his shoulders with an exaggerated extra flail of his arms before propping them on the table.

“Then how do you know you’re gonna be okay with it? What if you hate it?”

“Sydney, I’m not going to hate my kid.”

“Not that,” she corrected, “what if you hate not working like you used to?”

Vaughn thought for a second, darting his eyes around the open living room, everything still so shiny and not yet broken in by the new residents. “I can tell you what I _won’t_ miss,” he started. “I won’t miss the worry, the panic, the...long hours of crunching data, or the training seminars. I’m not going to miss the jet lag or flying halfway across the planet to meet with a shady guy to get information, and I’m not going to miss watching those shady guys hit on you as you milk them for all the intelligence they’re dumb enough to give. Being a stay at home dad sounds perfect, Syd.”

His admission surprised her and the few moments of quiet as they both got lost in thought was timed by the metronome of the ticking clock hanging on the wall of the kitchen.

“You’ve _always_ been more than a spy, Sydney. You were damn near the best editor the Tribune ever had because we both know that you edited Will’s articles for years,” he studied the side of her face as she’d gone back to watching the waves outside, though a grin pulled at her lips. “You got the best tips as a bartender at Francie’s restaurant, of that I’m sure, and,” he stopped, tapping the table and pulling her eyes back to his, “you’re Sydney Bristow. I mean...you can do _anything_. I’ve seen you literally do everything, and you always make it look easy.”

That made her laugh and shake her head. “Sydney Vaughn,” she reminded and took a deep breath.

“You want to know what I _do_ know for sure?” His question made her nod, her watery eyes coming back to his steady stare. “We’re gonna call my mom _every_ ... _single_ ... _day_.” 

Sharing a laugh she realized he was completely right. Her parents might not be the best to address their concerns, and one of them was inaccessible at the moment, but Deloreme Vaughn had been an angel in the two weeks she’d known the woman. At his honest statement, she relaxed.

“You’re just as scared as I am, aren’t you?”

“Absolutely. Maybe even a little more than you.”

“You hide it well,” she smirked.

“Thank you. I was also a spy,” he joked. “Drink your tea.”

Their conversation had allowed it to cool, and it coursed down her throat into her stomach almost immediately settling the turbulence. She closed her eyes and let out a relieved, slow breath.

“I’m sorry that I’m unbearable.”

“Ppft,” he buzzed his lips. “Even if you _were_ unbearable, I’d still be sitting right here at,” he paused and looked over at the stove, “one twelve in the morning.”

She balked nearly spitting out the mouthful of soothing tea. “You should get some sleep. Don’t you have a phone conference with Kendall at seven?”

He nodded but didn’t move. Instead, he slid down in the chair and folded his hands over his stomach as he took in her rumpled appearance with soft green eyes. Her camisole was twisted slightly around her stomach and her long brown hair was swept to one side, her fingers dragging through it two or three times while they were talking. Hints of circles under her eyes belied her assurance that she wasn’t missing out on too much sleep, and the complete lack of makeup made the tone of her skin pale in the low light coming from the moon outside and the dimmed lights of the kitchen.

“You’re beautiful,” he murmured, not hiding the adoration on his face.

Sydney rolled her eyes with a scoff. “I’m sure,” she said sarcastically, bringing the mug back to her lips and finishing off the tea. “I imagine the slightly green color of my skin makes me super hot.”

Michael’s smile widened. “I love when you’re green.”

“You’re the worst,” she lied.

The months in the bunker hadn’t let her realize how wonderful he was as a husband, but every day here he proved it bit by bit. Flowers, back rubs, letting her sleep until noon to then bring her breakfast in bed, cooking whatever she wanted when food made her queasy. He’d been at her beck and call for almost a week and after all that, here she was complaining that she was going stir crazy.

“I don’t really deserve you,” she said quietly. “You’ve been doing everything; unpacking the boxes, cooking, taking care of me and everything else, and I sleep all day and then complain that I’m bored after keeping you up at night.”

Vaughn laughed with a sharp exhale through his nose and stood to take her cup to rinse in the sink before refilling the kettle in the case they would need it again. Coming back to her side he pulled her up slowly and folded her into his arms. With the side of his finger, he tilted her chin up and leaned in to catch her lips, his other hand massaging at the small of her back.

“Be nicer to my wife, she’s growing a whole person and the only way I can help is by brewing tea and holding her hair back when she pukes.”

Tears formed a sheen across her eyes as she brought her mouth back to his, his kisses gentle and reassuring. Parting, they rested their foreheads together with him leaning down and her tilting slightly up sharing a sigh.

“Let’s get some sleep,” he whispered but didn’t move as his hand still kneaded at the tense muscles of her lower back.

“We could just...sleep like this, right?” He could tell from her voice that she was slipping away, so he pulled back just far enough to carefully lean down and lift at the back of her legs, slowly sweeping her into his arms.

During the last week or so, any swinging or rocking motion made her dizzy and nauseous, so he tried to make his move as smooth as possible. She didn’t pale or complain, and instead flashed a dimpled smile with her eyes still closed before resting her head on his shoulder.

Tucking her in, he found that she was asleep the moment she hit the pillow while he was left wide awake. It had been like that for the last few nights, unfortunately, Michael getting her back to bed before moving out to the living room to work on unpacking or watch some television until his eyes began to droop. That hadn’t been any less than an hour later, two the last two nights, this shaping up to be the same.

Kissing her temple and tugging the blankets up over her shoulder, he left and ended up in the hallway. Shoving his hands into the pockets of the plaid pajama pants, he looked back and forth before deciding to move to the room next door. It was currently empty, which was strange. Every other room had at least three or four boxes looming inside as they’d finally spread things out to make unpacking a little less overwhelming, but this room didn’t have anything to unpack. This presently empty room was to be the nursery.

The soft thickly-padded carpet felt good beneath his feet, a big contrast to the hard cherrywood flooring in the hallway. At first, he thought the sprawling ranch-style home was far too big; stretching nearly 4,000 square feet, it was the largest home he’d ever been in, let alone owned. The room, like all facing west, had an amazing view of the ocean, and as he looked around, he got an idea.

Turning his back on the window, at least twenty feet of bare wall stretched from the doorway down to where the far wall started, the home office on the other side. It would make a perfect canvas for a mural. He’d seen her notebooks from meetings and knew that her doodles looked far better than his crooked stick figures. Tomorrow he could go into town and buy what she would need to start the design for the nursery. The appointment next week would tell them the gender as well as other details as she would be ten weeks along, and designing the nursery could be just the thing to get them both out of their funk.

It would sure as hell be more exciting than unpacking endless boxes from both his and her storage units, a majority of her things quickly packed by a CIA team and not organized in any way, shape, or form. Stepping back to the doorway he looked from right to left and envisioned a crib, rocking chair, toys...a nervous energy building back up under his heart. He had no idea what else a baby needed.

 _‘Probably a lot more than that,’_ his brain figured.

It dawned on him that something he’d ordered had come in, and he’d all but rushed into town to get the mail before becoming distracted leaving said item still sitting unopened on the counter. Leaving the room with a grin, he grabbed it and moved to the living room to flop onto the couch and haul the blanket at the end over his lap and legs after propping his feet on the coffee table. 

Tearing the package open he tossed the wrapping to the left and looked at the yellow and black book cover. _Being a Great Dad For Dummies_ made him grin, and he opened the first page to start reading.

The smell of freshly-brewed coffee and a gentle hand against his cheek pulled him from slumber, and he spotted an orange glow to the suddenly bright room. He’d made it around a dozen pages before crashing, according to where his thumb was still wedged in the book as the whole thing lay flopped over his chest.

_‘Shit. The meeting.’_

“Guh,” he groaned, his neck stiff as he sat up, “what time is it?” He looked around for a clue, his eyes feeling a bit like sandpaper.

“It’s six. I woke you early so you had time before the meeting,” she said quietly, grabbing the reading material before it landed on the floor and trading it for the steaming cup of coffee.

Gesturing with the book, “this is adorable, by the way,” she giggled and set it gingerly on the table.

Michael blushed and accepted the life-giving liquid. “Don’t tell Weiss.”

“I text a picture to your mom,” she admitted, moving back into the kitchen and breaking the eggs into the pan as they sizzled in the butter. 

“She’s gonna tell Weiss,” he grumbled and tossed the blanket back to the end of the couch, rising and heading toward the kitchen. Sitting at the raised bar-style counter, the padded stool bouncy and not broken in, he heaved a sigh and took another sip of the scalding beverage.

“Thanks for the coffee. Your stomach okay?”

She wobbled her head back and forth sprinkling some cheese, salt, and pepper over the eggs before stirring it all in, “eh.”

The toast popped up and she grabbed it, sliding the two slices toward him on a plate with a knife, the butter, and a jar of grape jelly, and he raised his eyebrows. “Nothing for you?”

“Oh no,” she said quickly, pulling the eggs off the burner to slide them to his plate. Even behind the light makeup she’d put on he could see the paleness in her cheeks.

“Well, thank you for breakfast even though it made you queasy,” he said, Sydney sipping at another cup of peppermint tea and leaning against the counter on the other side of the kitchen, away from the food that was setting her stomach on edge.

“Thank you for sitting up with me last night and not getting enough sleep,” she smiled.

Behind the crunch of the toast, “I got an idea last night during my bout of insomnia.”

Over the rim of her mug, her eyebrows lifted.

“We’re gonna plan the nursery."

**…**

The bubbles popped around her as she settled into the hot water of the bath. After a week of planning and making sketches, she finally pried open the first can of paint. She and Vaughn had decided on an enchanted forest theme with woodland animals, and she’d spent almost a full day merely sketching a concept for a hollowed-out tree library for the corner along with the other subjects and she was excited to get started. It would be just the thing she anticipated needing during breaks from her classes that started next week.

Laying out the base browns and greens, she’d spent hours in the room with the windows tossed open and the cool ocean breeze ruffling the plastic laid out and taped down over the carpet, but her back finally let her know how upset it was with a deep ache. Hence the steaming bubble bath. The lights were off and she’d lit a myriad of candles around the room before wrapping her hair into a bun at the top of her head, securing the mess with a clip, and slipped into the soothing water and suds. Tendrils slipped out ending up wet around her shoulders, but she sighed and sank into the warmth closing her eyes, a soft smile playing at her lips.

Light tapping on the door a while later cracked her eyes to see her husband standing at the entrance carrying something in each hand.

“Mind if I join you?”

She gave a lazy nod and a soft smile as he pulled the stool over and parked next to the edge of the tub above her looking down. Setting a fresh cup of peppermint tea on the small stand to his left, mindful of the burning candle, he fisted a glass of brandy in the other and took a sip as the floral lavender and vanilla scents wafted around the bathroom.

They shared a few minutes of quiet, the popping of the bubbles a kind of white noise that made everything more relaxing.

“I miss you,” she whispered.

He grinned with a frown, “we’ve spent every day for the past two weeks together. Are you sure you don’t mean you’re sick of me?”

Rolling her eyes, the dimple poking out on her cheek, “no. I miss _you_.”

Realization dawned and he nodded with a wincing grin. Extreme motion sickness meant that even standing up too quickly would put her out of commission and, if bad enough, left her leaning over the closest toilet, sink, or trash can. Such motion included driving, the front porch swing, and most unfortunately, sex. No matter how slow they’d tried, the rocking motion sent her stomach into knots. 

“We’ve found ways around it.”

“It’s just...not enough sometimes,” she admitted with a wanting sigh.

Surprise flashed in his darkening green eyes, “are you saying I’m only good at the one thing?”

“Trust that that’s never something I’ll ever say,” she assuaged with a chuckle as the water bounced in time with her laugh making the bubbles around her crackle and move, exposing her shoulder. His eyes were immediately drawn to the skin as it caught the flickering candlelight, a few errant drops leaving trails that he suddenly, and more than anything, wanted to trace with either his fingers or his tongue.

Planting his feet, he pulled the stool as close to the side of the tub as he could. Taking another mouthful of the brandy before setting the glass aside, he reached out to scoop up some bubbles and blow them into the air, both pairs of eyes following as they landed where the rest of her body was hidden beneath the lavender-scented foam.

Too tempting to leave untouched, he leaned down to kiss the top of the exposed shoulder. Past the noise of the bubbles now so close to his ear he could hear the sudden intake of her breath, his eyes flicking up to see that hers had closed and her lips were now parted. She was right that everything _but_ sex was still good, but the lack of more had been wearing them both down. 

Truth be told, he missed being inside her. Flames of desire flared at the thought and his body responded to the unfortunately impossible possibility.

Skimming his now moist lips along her shoulder to her neck, he felt her imperceptibly tilt her head away from him to allow for easier access, a grin tilting the right side of his mouth. Gently suctioning a kiss to the thumping pulse point he stroked her skin with the flat of his tongue before pulling back. One of the loose strands of her hair that had escaped the bun caught his attention, wet and sticking where shoulder met neck, and his hand moved on its own to delicately trace along its meandering path over her collarbone until it stopped just above the floating raft of bubbles.

Underneath the popping barrier were her breasts which, even at just ten weeks, were slightly larger and much more sensitive. Moving through the suds his fingers traced her skin down to the barrier of the hot water. Breaking through, a soft moan left her throat as the pads of his fingers skimmed over the pebbled nipple, the mere hint of his touch stiffening her shoulders and back and curling her toes against the porcelain at the other end of the basin.

Nips and licks strewn from her shoulder to below her ear kept her in a dizzying state of passion as his hand slid further under to cup the soft flesh, the water was doing most of the lifting. He slowly brushed his thumb across her nipple lightly once, firmer twice, and light again for a third pass. He felt the water begin to seep higher into the sleeve of his button-up, though he didn’t have much time to regret not rolling them up as she turned her head and lifted her shoulder, her temple pressing against his as his tongue laved the sucking nibble he’d planted just below her ear.

Following the line of her jaw, her eager lips met his and their tongues melded in the middle as he sought to rememorize the taste of her, Sydney picking up hints of the brandy he’d been sipping. The pressure was light and his kisses slow and sensual until they broke for air, and he moved his hand to the other side to shower the neglected peak with the same gentle consideration.

Her voice was a low, wanton whisper, loud only because of his proximity, and her lips brushed his as he drank her words, “do you want me to-” a whimper cutting her off as he lightly pinched the bud between his fingers.

“Nope.” Catching her mouth again his lips dazzled her with distraction as his hand left her breasts and skimmed toward her belly button, the other pushing the suds away and slipping into the water behind her shoulders to keep her from sliding suddenly and sending her stomach into a roil. This pulled her closer to the surface, her taut nipple breaking the barrier to let it taste the cooler air around them.

Unfortunately, he wasn't able to lean forward far enough else he would have pulled it between his lips. Spreading his fingers and sliding them downward, he heard her hold her breath as she excitedly waited for his touch where she wanted it most. Watching with hooded green eyes as emotion changed like the seasons across her face, he felt the arm he was leaning over rise and clutch his forearm. Her brow would fold, eyebrows puckering together as they rose, her mouth and chin going in the opposite direction as her pouted lips formed an O, all before relaxing as she bit at the bottom left side of her lower lip.

Prolonging her excitement, he brushed the fuzz at the top of her mound before skipped over her center to the right to glide his hand as far as he could reach down her inner thigh. Pulling back and hooking his fingers against her skin, the water afforded little friction as he dragged his nails back up to her hip. An annoyed exhale left her lips and put a smile on his lips, a chuckle rising from his chest.

Cracking open her eyes she glared as he hovered above her with a cocky smarm written on his face. “You’re the worst,” she lied.

“You like it,” he countered and pecked a kiss to her lower lip, the stubble of his five o’clock shadow rubbing from his chin against hers.

She started to grumble his name, the noun tuning up midway to end in a mewl when the pad of his finger skimmed over her warmth with light pressure from top to bottom. He dipped his head down as she tilted hers back against the bath pillow, his lips sucking at her throat as his fingers spread her nether lips and traced back up from the bottom to graze her sensitive button.

The hand against his forearm tightened and he felt the bite of her fingernails through the wet cotton of his shirt, the water slowly seeping nearly to the crook of his elbow. Pulling his head back from the string of pink marks he’d left against her collarbone, he went back to studying the passion on her face. More hair had slipped from the clip and the tendrils falling around her shoulders before getting stuck and soaking up the drops of water. With her eyes closed, her head tossed back, and the nearest candle flicking a pale glow against the side of her face, she looked like a naughty angel.

Licks of electricity flared from her core to every nerve ending as he gently swept his fingers over the nubbin. She could feel his gaze as his breath fanned her throat, cool puffs against her overheated, moist skin that were refreshing compared to the heat of the water and of his touch.

Distantly he heard his cell phone ring as it dawned on him that he was waiting for Kendall’s follow-up on a project he’d started earlier that afternoon. His mind debated his hands for a fraction of a second until his fingers dipped again into her center feeling the wetness despite the water, the sweet moan leaving her lips to effectively block the shrill sound from the other room for a moment. Kendall would have to wait.

While he was more accustomed to exploring her folds from between her legs, he had unfettered access to her button with his middle and ring finger from this angle and proceeded to swirl it with soft circles. Her back arched pushing her backside into the bottom of the tub and her head into the padded pillow, and he spread his fingers against her upper back to keep her from going anywhere. The new twist of her body brought her chest high enough to once again break the surface and, more importantly, within reach of his waiting mouth. Another mewl left her lips as his tongue brushed across the sensitive perky nipple.

She expected the need to tell him to be gentle as her breasts, especially the nipples, had been sore, but per usual, he _was_ being gentle. She never really had to ask him to put her first, it was just where she existed with him. More lightning shot from where his tongue flicked the bud to travel through her stomach and crash into the flames licking up from his hand at her center.

Keeping up slow circles against the bundle of nerves while incrementally increasing the pressure, he sucked an open-mouthed kiss gently against her breast as the flat of his tongue massaged the bud. He was keeping in mind the soreness, but nothing he was doing seemed to bother her at the moment; all feedback was positive.

He knew she was getting close, his hand slipping away from her button to tease her folds and dip into the wetness, and her disappointed groan pulled another laugh from his chest as she lifted her head with a renewed glare.

“I was almost there,” she mumbled.

He nodded with another brash smirk, “I know.”

Grumbling, she leaned forward and snagged his lips, her tongue darting forward against his, and it was his turn to groan. Returning to the pearl at the top of her center, his fingers picked up the pace as he held her close, her other arm leaving the warm water to cup the side of his jaw, fingers delving into his hair as her whole body tensed.

He swallowed her cry as she came against his hand, the swirling continuing as he wound her down with the receding tremors of her orgasm. With a gasping smack their mouths parted, her head falling back against the pillow as she panted, bliss written across every inch of her face. 

Michael released her slowly making sure that she wasn’t going to slip under, pulling his arms out of the soapy water. Leaning in to press a kiss against her shoulder before standing, he undid the buttons of the now-sopping shirt and pulled it down from where it was plastered against his skin. He caught her half-lidded eyes as they watched him undress, the shrill ringing of his cell phone in the other room breaking the lull as she picked up on the noise.

She frowned and he nodded, “yeah, I had a call that I’m currently late for." 

Leaning over and resting his hands on the edge of the tub he caught her lips in another kiss, her hands skimming wet lines over his chest and down his stomach, and he broke away with a hiss before she could reach the straining manhood pinned behind his jeans.

“I’ll make it up to you later,” she promised in a sultry tone.

“Don’t fall asleep in the tub,” he ordered and grabbed the glass of brandy, downing the remainder as he stiffly walked from the room, Sydney laughing as she settled back into the bubbles with a contented sigh.

**…**

**A/N** : I’m not sure how many epilogue chapters we're going to have - probably quite a few as I have a bit planned! We had a lot of fun getting them to this point - so I’m looking forward to the fluffy stuff of them being settled.


	31. Epilogue Part 2: Bells

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [](https://www.flickr.com/photos/190971129@N06/50614000442/in/dateposted/)   
> 

A/N: It was demanded by my reviewers as they balked at me skipping over any kind of wedding. I declare them right. Enjoy the wedding chapter - just for you guys.

  
  
**Epilogue: Part 2**

Sydney looked through the window at the scene in the sand with a soft smile on her face, the sun nearly set and casting an orange and fiery yellow glow across the water and cresting waves. Rows of chairs seating around twenty were facing a natural driftwood-styled archway decorated with light blue and white flowers complemented by lace wrapping. The archway was flanked by short lattice fencing with the ocean as the backdrop, the area just wide enough to accommodate the wedding party while placing the bride and groom with the officiant in the middle.

They’d thought of going simple - the most important people and no big to-do, but the more she thought about things the more she realized that this would be her one and only wedding and likely the first normal thing she could actually have. Planning commenced, Francie catered from her new second restaurant location closer to where they’d moved, invitations went out, and shopping for dresses and suits took place all in the span of what felt like a _very_ short month. 

Despite the fact that they were already married, being super pregnant in all of her wedding photos wasn’t something she wanted to explain when and if anyone years from now asked while sifting through photo albums.

An air of melancholy hit her as she realized that no matter how normal of a moment this was supposed to be, her life had been anything but, and it was still going to show. Standing beside her would only be Francie, and by Vaughn would only be Weiss, as a lack of close friends necessitated a short list of bridesmaids and groomsmen. Her mother was still in a C.I.A. prison cell, and she couldn’t help but feel that something was going to crash through the perfect painting that her life was starting to become and send everything back into the chaotic tangle of wires she’d been spending so much time and energy to undo.

"When you were a baby I used to bounce you on my knee and sing you French lullabies," a soft voice spoke, Sydney jumping despite the gentleness and turning to see her mother-in-law leaning against the door jamb in a beautiful lavender dress.

The apology was written in her blue eyes as she moved into the room and closed the door behind her, the silky material swishing over the sandals strapped to her feet. "Sorry, dear."

Waving her off with a dimpled smile Sydney turned away from the window. "I forget that our families knew each other back then." Seeing the greying eyebrows raise, she clarified - sort of, “my...my father told me after I woke up.”

“I never thought I would end up with a daughter that speaks my native language. Alice would roll her eyes and look to Michael for translation, and I’ll admit that sometimes the things I said weren’t...very nice. It was always fun to watch him scramble and lie for me. I won’t be able to get away with that now, will I?”

Sydney laughed, the blonde ex-girlfriend having been wholly forgotten over the last year or so, and she realized that she’d never asked him if he’d fully broken up with Alice before beginning a whirlwind secret romance with her those many months ago.

“I can pretend if you’d like, but I speak around ten so it may be tough.”

The two enjoyed a quiet moment, Sydney smoothing the front of the dress as Deloreme watched the sun sink lower toward the sea.

"You were this...bright-eyed ball of lightning," the mother laughed, the French lilting off her lips like a fine wine. "My boy would follow you around telling you what to do, making sure you were following the rules, which, of course, you weren't."

Sydney chuckled, "that sounds like us."

"I know today isn't the day, and honestly, the time needn't be wasted, but it carved my soul from my body to see you in that room…with that man." The smile slowly fell from Sydney’s face, though Deloreme's eyes were still sparkling and her voice kept the soothing tenor and pace. "I had always thought that I would see you and Michael together. Maybe just out of high school becoming sweethearts; maybe...holding hands in elementary school before one of you decided that the opposite sex was gross. I knew something would draw you together, I never imagined it would be _that_."

“Actually, we started dating two months before that but...secrets. You’re,” a small grin returned, “you’re the first person I’ve ever actually told that,” she said honestly.

The mother laughed, “truth takes time, darling.”

Sydney’s heart panged in her chest and tears sprang to her eyes. “What did you say?”

Deloreme moved forward and reached out to grab the baby’s breath floral crown that was chosen in lieu of a veil, “truth takes time. Your mother used to say that quite often, rest her soul, and it brought me comfort through many trials. If she were here today, love,” she paused and reached up to set the crown arrangement on the top of the speechless young woman’s head, “she would be so proud.” 

The hair was up and pinned at the top of her head with several chosen strands hanging in wavy curls along her cheeks. Bringing her hands down she tenderly caressed the brown locks, the lighter highlights streaking through like rays of the setting sun outside.

Smiling through the tears, Sydney wiped at one that escaped with the back of her finger. “I was just thinking about her.” While true, definitely not in the way Vaughn’s mom would understand. To her, Sydney’s mother was still Laura Bristow who had died in a car accident when the girl was six, and to her, that’s how she would stay. 

Stepping back to admire her new daughter, Deloreme folded her hands flat palm to palm under her chin with a wide bright smile as she took in the simple but elegant white gown. The straps were thin over Sydney’s shoulders, adjusted perfectly to not bite into the skin but keep everything from slipping. Once past her collarbone they became widening triangles over both breasts meeting in the valley with a ‘V’. Below her breasts, it tapered along with the trim of her waist, the tightness giving way at her belly button to loose, flowing, layered fabric hanging just above her toes, the sandals strappy, flat, and perfect for the setting.

“Turn, let me check the back,” Deloreme said while twirling her finger.

The upper part of the back swooping around from under her arms all see-through lace, and both left and right sides had decorative fleurs with sweeping lines that met in the underneath her shoulder blades. Checking, the loops were in place over round fabric buttons with nothing amiss.

“Beautiful. Are you ready?”

Butterflies danced in her stomach at the question. “I don’t know why I’m nervous, we’re already married,” Sydney grumbled and flattened her hand over her stomach. 

The growing lump of their child only showed about an inch so far, hidden perfectly beneath the white fabric, but she could feel it and since it had begun to emerge, one or both of them had a hand there many times throughout the day. Flickering caught her eye and she turned to see the white strings of lights over the archway and fencing come to life as well as the beautiful hanging paper lanterns that now scattered a soft glow over the sand and seats.

“Signing a piece of paper in a basement is a bit different than today, love,” the mother grinned and held out her hand, Sydney taking it with a smile and letting herself be led from the master bedroom and into the hallway. Her father stood at the end, dapper in a black suit jacket and a crisp white button-up shirt, the missing tie giving him an air of casualness to which she was still trying to adjust.

In his hands were a bouquet of white lilies, and he wore a proud smile despite his stiff posture. 

“Ready, sweetheart? I just had a heart to heart with Michael,” he said smoothly, a twinkle of mischief in his blue eyes.

“Dad,” she grumbled, Deloreme patting her arm.

“I’ll make sure he’s fine. See you soon, dear.”

Brown eyes followed the mother-in-law toward the back door where curtains hung over the mirage of windows blocking the view of much of the outside. She hadn’t seen Vaughn all day save for waking in his arms that morning before Francie and his mother showed to help prepare everything. Another wave of excitement bubbled.

“You look beautiful,” he said reverently.

“You think you finally scared him off?”

Jack grinned, the glower on her face offset by the slight dimple he could see on her right cheek and the minute crinkle and uplift at the corner of her eyes. The black liner and hint of blue eyeshadow was a backdrop to the full lashes set above her twinkling eyes. The makeup was subtle yet present, a perfect match to the flowing hair and dress.

He didn’t answer, merely passed to her the bouquet and held out his arm for her to take. The music flowed from the speakers set both in and outside, Sydney sighing and rolling her eyes before hooking her left arm through his as Jack walked her toward the open back door.

**…**

“I have something for you,” Jack said curtly as he stepped up to the circle where Michael stood with Weiss and Will flanking right and left. Turning without waiting for a response, Weiss couldn’t help but throw out the middle school “ooooooh” taunt, others joining with a laugh. Knowing this moment was coming, though hoping it would have happened hours ago and not right before the ceremony, Vaughn passed off his drink and straightened the line of his jacket before heading after his father-in-law.

Walking into the cool interior, he couldn’t keep his eyes from darting around to look for Sydney. No luck, so he followed Jack through the kitchen, several of Francie’s employees tossing smiles and friendly ‘hellos’ as they prepared the food for the reception. Passing the hallway, the laundry room, past an unused utility room that Sydney was thinking of turning into a workout studio, a bubble of anxiety began to fill his stomach.

“Jack, if you’re taking me out to kill me, couldn’t you have done it before we set everything up?”

The elder scoffed but kept walking, the door to the garage opened, the light flipped on, the garage door opened, and still, Vaughn followed. Lines of cars were parked in the driveway and along the dirt-packed road that led to the entry gate, all locked up tight with the guard the C.I.A. had lent standing at attention.

Making the way to his sedan, Jack opened the passenger door and picked up a file box, Vaughn balking. “Seriously? Work?” 

“Open it,” he ordered trying to maintain his hard and steely stare and pushing it into his surprised son-in-law’s arms.

Pulling off the lid with a grumble, Michael found it to be filled with baby clothes in various shades of pinks and yellows, the news of the baby’s gender sweeping like fire through the small group. On top sat several framed photographs, smiling faces he recognized making his heart slam into his sternum. Looking up with surprise at the intimidating man, he saw the faked hardness slip away as the father hit him with soft blue eyes and a smile.

Setting the box on the hood of the car, Michael pulled the photos out one by one. Jack holding Sydney as a baby. Jack and, at the time, Laura Bristow posing for a photograph with her at one year old. Deloreme pressing a kiss to the top of a blonde head, himself as a babe wrapped in a blue blanket. His parents holding him on a hip between them and posing at some kind of function.

The last and largest made Vaughn’s chin quiver to see himself as a toddler on Jack Bristow’s hip with Sydney cradled in a fluffy pink and white dress by Bill Vaughn as the two talked, Deloreme and Laura in their own conversation off to the side. Someone must have called their names when snapping the picture, the quick but bright smiles showing the confidence and contentment of an era long gone, and he sniffled before wiping at his nose with the back of his hand.

“Jack...I,” he stopped, the man releasing an airy chuckle.

“That last one was, ironically, taken by Arvin Sloane.” Pausing and toeing at the sand as the unfamiliar feeling of embarrassment sneaked up, Jack continued. “Your mother helped with the photos. Those on my end were...buried, but found.”

Holding out one last image, framed and the perfect size for a desk, “this one’s my favorite...I think.”

Sydney as a baby with a mop of brown curls at the top of her head was looking adoringly up at the blonde toddler holding her gently but awkwardly on his tiny lap. Her hand was grasped around his fingers and he must have been explaining something, his pink lips parted as a smile popped the dimple in on his right cheek while he looked down at her with excited green eyes.

“You’ve loved her your whole life, all I ask is that it stays that way.”

Michael didn’t trust his voice as he looked up to the fire-hued sky as tears trailed down his smooth cheeks. Nodding he turned, watery green hitting watery blue, and in two steps Vaughn wrapped his arms around the surprised father holding him tight. Responding with a hug of his own, his hand patting the younger’s back, the two parted.

Reverently repacking the photos back into the box it was carried into the garage, Michael slipping out the front to circle to the back of the house and the party outside, not wanting to risk seeing Sydney too soon as they had been making the effort to keep with tradition, something missing from both of their lives for far too long. His hands were deep in the pockets of the blue dress pants that matched the blazer, and his eyes focused on the setting sun as it nearly finished its journey into the horizon.

“Oh good, Michael; Marshall was wondering if-” Francie started, and then stopped seeing the softness of his features, wet eyes, and the drying tears on his cheeks. “You okay?”

Vaughn shook his head and cleared his throat, his hands wiping quickly at his cheeks and eyes, “yeah. Yeah, sorry. Something about what now?”

“Marshall wanted to know if you wanted to start the music? It’s just about time.”

“Yeah. Let’s do it.”

Grinning, the young woman pulled a tissue from a cache hid inside the left bra cup of her dress, handing it his way. “I’ve got more, trust me.”

He laughed and rubbed his eyes and cheeks before slipping it into his pocket, Francie moving off to get things rolling. His mother stepped out from the house, Vaughn heading her way with a smile.

“There you are,” she said brightly. “I forgot how intimidating Jack Bristow was. Did he scare you off?”

Rather than answering, he looped his arm through hers and led her to her seat, “thanks for the photos,” he whispered while pressing a kiss to her cheek, the sheen of renewed tears in their eyes shared as he moved to stand next to Eric. His friend was in a matching pair of dress pants, though the blue blazer was missing as he stood only in a white button-up shirt. Formal yet casual, the attire befitting a wedding on the beach.

Now, all they had to do was wait.

**…**

She thought she was going to throw up. Pausing before the exit to suck in a few deep breaths, her father snapped his fingers until a glass of water appeared. She sipped it with a thankful smile and willed her nervous stomach to settle down.

 _‘Come on, kid. This won’t be the first time I ask you to settle down, but tonight of all nights, please listen despite the fact that you’re part Bristow. Settle down,’_ she begged internally. Mercifully, be it the water or her first mother/daughter pep talk, everything relaxed as the soft music played. 

With one final deep breath, this time for courage, they stepped through the doorway, the other side such a stark contrast that it felt like a portal to a new world. The sky was a deep glowing chasm, cloudless as it stretched on forever. The single bright twinkle of a star poked through the twilight as the sand was darkened at the shore by cresting waves of orange and yellow shimmers.

Since before they’d known attraction for one another, if that time even existed, she’d been able to feel his eyes on her. Now was no different.

Michael Vaughn had been many things to her since they’d met what felt like an eternity ago.

_Confidant. Coworker. Antagonizer. Handler. Friend. Advisor. Crush. Boss. Sounding board. Guardian angel. Frustration. Listener. Lover. Husband._

He stood waiting across what felt like a secondary sea of sand and people, but everything faded away when their eyes locked. She could read everything on his face in an instant, a secret smile lifting their lips simultaneously. She’d marry him a dozen times for him to look at her like this again. His gaze was all love and longing and shone like a beacon calling to her, a lost ship at sea focusing on her lighthouse.

The suit hugged his shoulders and chest before tapering down his waist, a small folded square of a handkerchief sticking up from the breast pocket the only accent. Buttoned over his stomach the blazer was snug over the tie-less white button-up shirt, and tight to his hips were matching blue dress pants ending over his bare feet. She grinned recalling their argument the day before that his dress shoes sank too far into the sand on his trial walk, so he decided he would go barefoot. She had wanted to fight him but realized quickly that since he’d given in to almost every single demand she’d thrown, she could let him go barefoot.

He had always been, was currently, and always would be on her side, and he’d give her the moon if he could pluck it from the sky, of that she was sure.

**...**

Music wafted from the speakers, a classical tune he wasn’t familiar with, and he remembered her vehemently refusing to use Pachabel’s Canon in D, whatever that was. Whatever this was, he assumed it wasn’t that. People stopped milling and took their seats, the officiant stepping forward with a soft smile and bright hazel eyes, the cream-colored blazer neutral over her top and laying flat over pleated and matching cream-colored dress pants. They’d decided on a non-religious ceremony, neither of them even sure where they were on the spectrum of religion after everything they’d experienced.

Michael Vaughn had seen Sydney Bristow in many disguises, some real and others pretend.

_Scientist. Waitress. Wounded daughter. Lady of the night. Commando. Worried friend. Showgirl. Cat burglar. Frazzled double agent. Superhero. Track runner. Student. Victim. Lover. Wife._

Everything he'd known was erased the moment she walked into the warm night air with the glow of dusk bathing the world in fiery shades of gold. Everyone and everything else faded away and she was all there was - the single most beautiful disguise not a disguise at all. Her eyes instantly found his, and he saw the small uptick of her lips and knew that his matched.

 _‘This is why guys do this,’_ he thought as Jack led her closer. The last month had been fraught with arguing, worry, nervous bouts of getting sick, and all without the comfort of many different kinds of her favorite foods, wine, or coffee. Not that he hadn’t had plenty of all for the both of them.

_‘It was all completely worth it.’_

“Not bad,” Weiss whispered and pulled him from his reverie, Vaughn expecting to see the typical jest in his eyes, but spotted only an honest sheen of tears and pride.

“Yeah,” he responded quietly, looking back and following her with a loving green gaze until she was standing next to Francie, the friend taking the bouquet and mouthing _“love you”_ through tear-stained cheeks. 

And then...she was right there. He held out his hand, her fingers looping through his and shooting electricity from the light touch straight through his heart to his stomach.

**...**

"Because _you_ have a photographic memory, I assume that yours are memorized, but-” gesturing with the small note card he pulled out of his pocket gained him a few laughs from the audience. 

The ambient light was shifting from natural to synthetic as the sunset weakened further into dusk, darkness seeping west across the sky above them. Nervous adrenaline shot through his veins quickening his heartbeat, and he found himself pausing for a moment to swallow and take a breath. Switching from the scrawled writing on the notecard to the shining warmth in Sydney’s eyes, he crumpled it in his palm deciding instead to try and articulate what his overflowing heart was feeling.

"I don't remember the first time I met you." Her brow crinkled in a confused frown, the first of the evening.

"I was three, and you were a new baby that showed up at my house.” Looking to his left, he met first Jack’s smiling eyes and then his mother’s. “Jack and...Laura would babysit now and again, and after you were born my parents did the same. I don’t remember it, though,” he said looking back to her.

“But...I...I really wish I could because that had to have been the first time I fell in love with you."

Michael paused for a moment, the nerves trying to make him regret abandoning his plan.

 _‘Always be prepared,’_ the Boy Scout mantra rolled through his head. _‘Tell her how deep your love goes.’_

Green held brown captive.

“Sometimes I wake up before you do, and I watch you sleep. And I’m...overwhelmed because you're so amazing,” he paused as a wash of tears curtain her stare, “and I don’t know why I’m lucky enough to have you in my life.”

“You’re here with me, despite everything, and,” his vision blurred and voice became watery, “I’ve always loved you. Know that I want to spend the rest of my life trying to make you as happy as you make me.”

**…**

Francie stepped up with a tissue in her hand, Sydney chuckling through the tears and taking it to blot just under her eyes in an effort to not smudge her makeup.

“Why did I not go first,” she whimpered, making those that heard her honest admission laugh quietly.

Biting at her upper lip trying to get her emotions in check she looked back to the man she’d utterly fallen for standing before her in a fine suit and looking at her like she was the center of the universe. She felt the words she’d prepared and indeed memorized slip away, and while not understanding how he could possibly crumple his speech and wing it, that all now made sense.

Both had started their journey comfortable and warm and swaddled within the protection of stability, each having that stripped away piece by piece until they yearned for something more - to be a part of something more. For both that was the C.I.A. but only for one was that the truth. Their parallel journeys spiraled like a helix, twisting and turning with one side just out of reach of the other until lightning struck.

“You are the one person that I’ve trusted with everything. And not just today, or...or last week, since the very beginning. You told me that you had an instinct, and for a long time I didn’t know what that meant.”

Her fingers played with the tissue absently as she spoke, her gaze locked with his.

“I can honestly say I’ve never felt connected to the soul with someone before you, and it terrified me at first. That level of trust wasn’t something I knew I could give or that anyone could earn.”

A bright smile hit her cheeks as she wiped at an errant tear. “I wouldn’t just let anyone break into the Vatican with me,” she laughed, Michael joining.

“I’ve loved you since the moment you held my hand on the pier,” she said with honesty written across her face. “You’re the first person I want to see in the morning and the last I want to see in the evening, and I can’t wait to do that every...single...day.”

**…**

“How’s your stomach?” 

Michael’s voice was quiet in her ear, his mouth close as the pair swayed to the music. He always assumed that the ‘first dance’ would be awkward, and the fact that everyone was standing and staring with googly eyes and dumb grins on their faces should be making him feel uncomfortable.

Instead, he didn’t care. As he rocked on his feet with her hand tucked in his over his heart and her temple pressed against his cheek, their eyes closed as he inhaled the floral perfume of her hair.

“I’m fine,” she whispered.

“Did you have anything to eat?”

She chuckled and squeezed his bicep with the hand resting over his arm, “Michael, stop worrying and just enjoy the moment.”

He grinned and shook his head, which she felt against her own, so she nodded in response. Knowing he wouldn’t let it go, “I’ve been drinking water and as long as you don’t spin or dip me, we’ll be fine.”

“We should think of baby names.”

His abrupt change of subject brought a bright smile to her face, any onlookers knowing only that he’d said something by her reaction but not knowing the subject. The proximity of their mouths to their ears was perfect for the secret conversation.

“Yeah?”

Excitement grew up from her stomach to flower around her heart, and she felt the pad of his thumb rub the back of her knuckles.

“Doloris,” he suggested with a smirk, and she scoffed in his ear.

“Is she going to be born eighty years old?” Pausing for a few beats, “How about Clementine?”

Michael grimaced behind the upturned lips, his eyes staying closed, “that’s a fruit.”

“It’s also a name,” she countered.

“Bessy.”

“Like...a milking cow?”

"Flora," she giggled.

"Ooh, and then we could name the second, Fauna."

The ugly sound she made in his ear was accompanied by a flutter in her heart. "We haven’t even had the first yet and you're already planning a second?"

He laughed, tilting his head down to press a kiss to the top of her shoulder. “Agatha.”

“I _am_ a literature major,” she started, Vaughn cutting her off.

“Yeesh, I was kidding. Honestly, I was mostly looking at boy names before we found out, so I’m bad with girl names.”

Intending for his excuse to be light and flighty since he wasn't able to think of any other terrible ideas, it didn’t seem to land the right way, and Sydney frowned. “You’re not...bummed we’re having a girl, are you?”

His eyes flew open and he back-tracked with panic written on his face. “No, that...I was just kidding,” he stuttered.

“You’re sure?”

“A copy of you running around? Absolutely,” he grinned and pulled his head back to let her see the relieved smile on his face. “What about Isabelle? I’m...being serious now.”

The song began to wind down, but the dimpled smile came back to her face. “Isabelle? Now that’s pretty.”

He winked and leaned in to press a soft kiss to her lips, the song fading away.

**...**

The champagne tickled his tongue as he sipped, swirled, and swallowed the bubbly liquid, his eyes sweeping the waves as they washed over the sand. Above them shone an endless sea of stars spreading forever toward the horizon and beyond, their dancing brilliance brighter here than in the city. The Milky Way trekked across the sky, an imperfect replica shimmering in the waters below.

“You’re gonna get bored out here,” Weiss slurred from his left, and Vaughn rolled his eyes.

“How?”

Sitting up as best he could and gesturing wildly around at the scrolling sandy beach and not another house for miles, he was assuming Vaughn didn’t think it was perfect.

“You’ve...seen my wife, right?” Chuckling at his own joke, “I’m never gonna get bored out here.”

“I’m sitting right here,” her reminder dripping with sarcasm from the seat to his right, Will and Francie laughing together.

“I’d apologize for him, but I still think it’s cute,” Jamie giggled, Eric mumbling something mostly incoherent as his eyes slipped closed. “Alright, I’d better get him back to the city. Come on, you. Say your goodbyes.”

Getting Weiss to his feet, he slipped his arm around her shoulders as she took the beer from his hand. “Happy birthday, Mike.”

“Thanks, buddy. Drink some water, okay? Let your nurse girlfriend keep you alive.”

The couples slipped into silence, though simultaneous sighs hit the open air making them all smile. 

“We’re the last ones here,” Francie said with a grunt as she sat up, pulling Will with her. “We’ll get outta your hair. I’ll come back tomorrow to help clean up and grab the catering stuff, just leave it all in the kitchen. Your mom already stocked the fridge there and the garage with leftovers, so you probably won’t starve.”

“Fran, thank you so much. For everything,” Sydney said behind a bubble of emotion, standing and wrapping her arms around her best friend in a tight hug.

“If you cry, it makes me cry. So don’t! I'm out of tissues,” the ebony woman ordered, Will pulling them apart before wrapping his arms around Sydney.

“These emotions are too much, I can’t handle it. We’ll lock the door and gate on our way out. Promise.”

He pressed a kiss to Sydney’s forehead and patted Vaughn on the shoulder, the groom staying put in the comfortably-padded chaise. Seeing the lights turn off as the pair left, and hearing the beep of the alarm system echoing through the patio door from the empty living room, Sydney looked down at her husband as he sipped his champagne, green twinkling eyes reflecting the stars back up at her.

Holding out her hand and beckoning him up, he smiled and quickly swallowed the rest before accepting and standing. Setting the fluted glass on the arm of the chair he walked her forward, lifting her hand up over her head and slowly spinning her, his invitation to dance in the moonlight.

Sydney wanted to deny his request as fatigue clawed at her bones, but the shining love she saw in his eyes pulled her into his arms, set her head to his shoulder, and tucked her nose against his throat. Wrapping her arms over his shoulders, she hooked one behind his head to clutch at the opposite side as her other hand played with the hairs at the nape of his neck; his slid warm lines down her back before folding together to rest just above the rise of her backside. His feet rocked them back and forth to a slow melody only he could hear, though the song of the waves wafted around them accompanied by cool, salty sea air.

“Thank you for today,” she whispered.

Michael’s response was to tighten around her for a moment before loosening his grip, the corners of his mouth tilting as he kept his silence while they swayed in the sand.

“If I could bottle for later how you looked at me all evening, I would do it in a heartbeat so I could have that every day.”

Vaughn tilted his head back to catch her sleepy brown eyes and the soft smile on her lips, one hand coming up to cup her cheek as the other pulled her farther into his embrace. Brushing the pad of his thumb over the freckles he knew were there but couldn’t see in the moonlight, he leaned in.

His kiss was a slow exploration of her lips, sensual in the softest way. She could taste the champagne he’d just finished, the only taste that evening she’d had, and a contented sigh left her chest. Drinking the peacefulness she exuded, he pulled from her mouth and leaned in to gently ghost his lips along her jaw and then throat, ending at the juncture of her shoulder and neck.

Releasing her slowly to make sure her feet were steady, he slid his hands down her arms and looped his fingers through hers before turning and leading her back into the house. If she was half as tired as he was, she was exhausted and ready to climb into bed, wedding night or not. 

Having said that, if she wanted more he would absolutely stay up with her. The air of the bedroom was stuffy, Michael throwing open the bay doors to let in the breeze rolling off the ocean before turning back to memorize everything about her one last time.

“That look; right there,” she smiled.

“I'm pretty sure this is how I normally look at you,” he slowly headed toward her.

She shook her head lightly, the loose, wavy brown curls tickling her shoulders, “it feels different...has all night.”

Michael smiled and stopped inches from her, his temple leaning against the side of her head before delicately brushing the tips of his fingers against her forearms. “Different how?” His words were a soft breath against her ear and sent a shiver across her skin from head to toe.

“Just... _more_ ,” she whispered, her hands coming up to dance her fingers up over the taut fabric of the white button-up that was still tucked into the top of his trousers. Feeling his lips press a kiss to the top of her ear, she slowly worked her way back down to the belt one shirt button at a time. Leaving it to hang open, she slid her hands inside to caress his warm skin.

Stepping away he moved around behind her. The loose tendrils left out of the hairdo hair tickled his nose and cheeks as he pressed a series of kisses against the back of her shoulder toward the base of her neck, his fingers tracing her spine until he came to the top button at the middle of her back.

Sydney felt the dress loosen around her shoulders and chest as he slowly released each clasp. His warm lips followed the path as it was created, and each moment his mouth touched her skin it blazed a trail down her spine, around and into her surprisingly settled stomach, and deep into her center. She brought her arms up to pull at the half-dozen pins holding her hair in place at the top of her head, the curls dropping in a bundle between her shoulder blades.

Vaughn’s hands were up in an instant, his fingers delving into the chocolate tresses to massage her scalp and pull a relaxed sign from her lips. She leaned back against him, the skin between her open dress and his open shirt meeting in the middle as he felt the tension in the back of her neck begin to recede.

“If you’re too tired, we-”

“Don’t finish that sentence,” she gave a quiet sultry order. “I could be ready to drop dead and still have time.”

His gravelly chuckle fanned a rush of hot air against her neck as one hand continued the massage while the other hooked the strap of her loose dress at the shoulder, his mouth following as he slid it off to dangle with a tickle against her upper arm. Switching and doing the same to the opposite side, he let her go to a disgruntled hum and stepped back to pinch the edge of the fabric and slide it over her hips.

Gravity took over and she felt the soft material pool against the backs of her calves, and she both felt and heard the sudden intake of breath he pulled between his teeth as his eyes settled on the white lace panties, the mid-thigh garter, and the fact that the bra was built into the dress itself leaving nothing else over her figure. The cool air from the open doors fluttered the curtains and pebbled her nipples, though his hands pulling her back into his frame and swirling patterns over her hips and around to the front of her thighs would have done the same without the draft.

Moving aside her hair with his nose he kissed his way from the top of her shoulder to her neck as she tilted her head to give him access, and the moment his hand cupped her breast and his thumb brushed the sensitive bud she loosed an airy moan into the quiet of the bedroom, the distant sound of waves crashing and wind rustling through the palms echoing back. 

Wrapping his arms around her middle with one under her breasts and the other over their nestled child, he pulled her flush and set his chin to her shoulder. Sydney brought up her hand to cup his cheek as they dove into the familiar sea of intimacy. Gradually the world fell away and their eyes slipped closed, and the only things in existence were the feel, taste, touch, and scent of one another.

The feel of smooth skin, hers soft over lithe while his stretched over bulkier muscles.

The taste of her perfumed skin and the hint of champagne still clinging to his tongue.

The touch setting a thousand nerve endings alight.

The scent of floral and masculine perfume and cologne mingling delightfully together, both unique and comforting.

He would have stayed adrift forever, but she moved first. Turning slowly in his embrace, his arms loosening but not letting go, she faced him and looked up making the ends of her hair tickle his arm. Pulling the bottom of the shirt out from the waistband, both pointer fingers traced the open edge of each side from his belly button up to his shoulders, her slow trek making each muscle jump with the light touch.

Slipping the shirt from one side, her mouth traced his collarbone up to the top of the muscled shoulder until the cotton slid off. Dragging her lips to the opposite side, her tongue dipping into the dimple between his collarbones on her journey, the shirt came loose and he shrugged it to the floor behind him.

Moving to the center of his chest, she placed a soft kiss over his heart, the thudding beneath her lips quickening as her hands trailed back down to his waist to his belt. Moving up, she prompted a grumbling vibration against her lips as she set them to his throat, the apple bobbing beneath her exploration as he swallowed and closed his eyes.

The pants dropped to the top of his feet, the straining bulge tenting the fabric of his boxers as she pressed her palm against him through the silk. His hands itched to touch her, and he wasn’t sure why he was keeping them at bay. This realization made him bring up his palms to cup both sides of her face, tilting it up to his as his mouth smothered hers. Their tongues swept together stilling her hand at his flesh and catching the breath in her chest as his intensity.

The pressure of his mouth was equal parts sensual softness mixed with ardent need, and she felt her fingers hooking the hem of the silk to push the boxers down his hips. The fabric ghosted against her thighs, Vaughn kicking them aside as he walked backward still gently clutching her face until his lips smacked apart from hers. As the back of his legs hit the edge of the bed he stopped, his hands coming to her hips putting the lace of the panties against his palms. Tilting back he fell to the mattress and pulled her above him, her knees landing on either side of his hips as his hardness came into contact with her covered core.

Using the momentum, her pouted lips slanted back over his as a curtain of umber tresses fell around them. Their tongues dueled as one hand slid up over her back to trace the lines of her arching spine and the edge of her shoulder blades as she propped herself over him. His fingers dove back into her hair pushing it to one side as his other hand moved from her hip to her backside to splay against the globe of the cheek before squeezing and pressing her more firmly against his desire.

Pulling away she sat up and looked down at him with sparkling eyes, and he swept his gaze from her sparkling eyes to the lace-covered juncture of her legs. In the dim light he could see the purple-hue was deep around each iris, and the pink flush to her cheeks coupled with her pouted, parted lips made him want to kiss her for a thousand years. His left hand slid from her hip to mid-thigh and traced the silky edge of the garter.

“There’s that look again,” she said softly, her palms against his chest.

His face softened and he nodded. “You’re the most precious thing in the world to me. You know that, right?” She felt the hand clutching her hip loosen its grip as his thumb stretched out to rub up and down over the small swell below her stomach.

“Yeah,” she responded with an exhale, “that’s what that look says.”

Vaughn sat up, the hand at her hip circling around to the small of her back to hold her close as he slid their tangled bodies to the center of the large bed. She unfurled her limbs, wrapping them over his hips as he sat nearly cross-legged with her backside resting in the center of his thighs. Tipping her slightly, her right arm reached back to catch and hold her weight while the other looped around the back of his neck as he sat upright with her.

While his mouth and tongue went back to exploring her throat, his free hand moved between them and slid behind the fabric over her mound, the small strip of trimmed hair tickling his palm. The arm behind his neck tightened as his fingers cupped her warmth before his ring and middle dipped into her wet folds, a groan crawling up from his chest vibrating against her neck. The tips of his fingers flicked up, the angle awkward and not allowing him full flexibility or access, but he found the bundle of nerves at the top and smiled as she arched against him and tossed her head back, her weight pressing against the flat palm behind her on the bedspread.

Removing his hand, much to her chagrin, he gripped the side of the panties at her hip between his fingers, the other hand joining, and a small popping of the threads was all she heard before feeling it fall away. Doing the same on the other side, Sydney appreciated the moment his arm circled back around to spread his hand against the small of her back and take some of her weight, and she could feel the muscles in his back tighten under her arm. 

His free hand moved between their bodies and gripped his shaft to angle himself down. The blunt head slid over her button prompting a hmm from the back of her throat, and together with his hand at her back pulling and hers against the bed pushing, he slid her slowly over him to sink into the velvet heat of her channel. Dropping his head to her throat, nips and licks showering the spot where she’d dabbed on her perfume, he loosened his grip and let her slide away from him, her hand stopping the retreat before he pulled her back in and around his hardness.

Repeating the slow thrusts, with him pulling her back and forth between his folded legs to meet him at this new angle, he could feel the muscles in the middle of his back and his stomach begin to tighten. Though he didn’t know how long he could go sitting upright with her wrapped around him, he had no intention of changing position any time soon.

Sydney was on cloud nine. His mouth was now moving down, and she loosened her arm around his neck further lean back on the weight-bearing arm behind her, thankful it wasn’t her left. She didn’t have enough faith that it wouldn’t buckle, the muscles and joints permanently damaged from the hours spent dislocated and broken. Most of the time it didn’t bother her, she hadn’t really needed to worry about it, but she was thankful she’d chosen wisely tonight, even though it was pure instinct.

Her fingernails dug until his shoulder as his lips encircled her nipple, tongue petting it from within the hot confines of his mouth. The sounds from her throat spurred him on as he showered one side with rapt attention before switching to the other, all the while as their bodies continued to pull her back and forth over him.

With every slow, in and out slide inside, he grazed her G-spot before pulling her as close as she could go causing her clit to rub against the taut muscle of his lower stomach. It wasn’t going to take very long for her to come, of that, they both knew, but when did it? He had it down to a science that each time was as many as he could tease out.

Sydney began to recognize through the passion-induced daze that his voice had gone gravelly against her neck and shoulder, and she could feel his toes beginning to curl from where his legs were wrapped around behind her. He was just as close as she was. As his other hand made its way to her hips to push and pull her over and around him, she brought her right arm up to wrap around his shoulders and clutch at his back, content to cling to him and let the slow pace build up the pressure boiling in her lower stomach.

His mouth sucked a wet kiss to her swallowing throat, groaning as her walls began to tighten around him. Her back slowly arched as she neared her climax and he could feel the muscles of her legs stiffen and cling around his lower back. The shuddering pants pulling raggedly from between her pouted lips were the precursors as her orgasm crashed through her body, the squeeze of her channel pulling his own out in hot spurts as he groaned into her neck, flyaway strands of her hair caressing his face before sticking to his forehead and cheeks. He idly rocked into her a few last times, his muscles taking over in an effort to prolong the pleasure, and as soon as the euphoria that had his body and soul entranced began to recede, heavy weights on his limbs reminded him how tired he was.

Sliding his hands up from her backside to her waist, he straightened his legs and pushed her forward to lie on her back, miraculously against the pillows at the top of the bed. He was still nestled within her as her legs had yet to loosen around his hips, and her face was a mask of blissful contentment as she flopped her arms over his legs, each still straddled the sides of her body.

Tracing the muscled lines of her thigh, his hand found the garter. Lifting at her knee and folding it up against her body, he slid the elastic lace down her calf and off, tossing it somewhere behind him. He could see her beginning to slip away as sleep knocked at the door, and though it caused him to pull from her warmth, he moved up to his knees to lean over, claim her lips, and glide back home.

Sydney loosed a purring hum, her legs instinctively hooking around his thighs to pull him close as her tongue gently swept across his lower lip when he pulled away.

“Sorry,” he whispered, prompting a frown. “I wasn’t done being inside you.” Turning, he buried his nose against her throat peppering small kisses against her scented skin, his fatigued arms shaking a bit as he held himself up.

Her hands rubbed soothing circles over his back, the sweat cooling in the chill of the air conditioning and the still-rolling breeze coming off the ocean outside. “That’s never something you have to apologize for,” she assured as she tugged him down, wrapping around him and sighing against his shoulder.

She didn’t recall falling asleep, though the sensation that she was flying cracked her eyes and she found that he’d lifted her up to tug the blankets back before tucking her into his arms as his hand reclaimed its usual spot over the small lump of her stomach. His breathing instantly shifted with a soft snore against the back of her neck, her hair tickling his nose, and though she tried to stay in the moment and not the day end, her eyes closed and everything slipped away.

**…**


	32. Epilogue Part 3: Growth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [](https://www.flickr.com/photos/190971129@N06/50614101161/in/dateposted/)   
> 

**Epilogue: Part 3**

“Write this down,” Jack ordered, “Sierra, foxtrot, 47-98, helo, sierra, 3-1-8-5-”

“Woah...wait, lemme...grab a pen,” Vaughn grumbled interrupting the stream of identification numbers that his father-in-law was throwing across the airwaves. The first pen didn’t work, and when Jack started repeating the sequence, the younger audibly grumbled as he looked around the desk for a replacement.

“Vaughn,” Sydney’s voice called from the other room, the high pitch of excitement catching his attention.

“Hang on Syd, I’m on a call with your dad. Jack, stop saying numbers, I’m not your daughter so I won’t memorize them the moment you speak. I need to find a-” another one coming up dead, “damn working pen.”

Jack chuckled, “is she available?”

Michael looked up as she hit the doorway, a flush to her cheeks as her hand pressed against the growing lump of her stomach behind the stretched cotton of the camisole. While their growing bundle only jutted out two or three inches, it had become fairly noticeable due to her slim physique. His hands froze mid opening of a drawer.

“Everything okay?” A nervous flutter migrated from his heart to his stomach as her fingers pressed into her lower stomach.

“I felt her move,” the words flew out in a rush.

He immediately forgot what he was doing as his eyebrows shot up while his eyes jumped to the miniature swell that was their child. She’d obviously been painting in the nursery, the cotton of the shirt speckled with green and yellow paint, and the area of her lower abdomen spotted with fingerprints from where she’d been feeling around.

“Really?”

Jack could hear their muffled conversation, annoyance bubbling up from his stomach. “Vaughn, we have a finite amount of time to-”

“Yeah, hang on, Jack.” Abandoning the phone on the desk, he stepped around and made his way over to his excited wife. “Still? Like...right now?”

“She was. Here,” she said, reaching for his hand. He gave it willingly as the pair wore goofy grins.

Pressing his fingers lightly against the bump, Sydney set hers over his and pressed them a little deeper, and they stood waiting with bated breath. His eyes were fixed on their hands as he poured all of his concentration on the effort, and moments passed until her other hand excitedly tapped his arm.

“There. Did you feel it? It’s kind of like...if my stomach grumbled.” She wasn’t prepared for him to shake his head. “Really?”

“Come on, Little Bean,” he murmured, holding his breath and closing his eyes.

Another movement according to her, and again, he felt nothing against his fingertips. “Maybe...maybe it’s too soon?”

His suggestion caused a sheen of tears to curtain her eyes catching him off guard. “I’m sorry! I was so excited,” she groaned, Michael responding with a soft laughing scoff and wrapping his arms around her back.

“Sweetie, it’s okay. You get to have this first, and that’s okay.” He knew it was primarily the hormones that were making her emotions flare from hot to cold, though lately, it had been mostly hot, and she leaned into him with a heavy sigh against the side of his neck as his hands ran soothing figure-eight patterns over her back, fingers digging in ever so slightly to loosen her tense muscles.

She began to relax, and though she was still thrilled at the fact that she’d felt the baby move for the first time, she longed to share it with him as they’d shared everything else thus far. With another sigh, she pulled back and set her palm flat over his heart, one of his hands splaying across her lower back as the other came up to brush his thumb over a splash of lime green paint on her cheek.

“I really wanted to share this with you,” she said honestly.

Vaughn grinned and dropped his hand down to brush his knuckles lovingly across the bump. “You did.”

**…**

_The night is warm and quiet, Sydney resting with her head on my lap as she reads a crazy thick book while I watch last night's hockey game. Honestly, for a little while, I haven't been paying much attention to the game. I've been wandering from memory to memory...some good, some bad, some dumb._

_There’s no particular chronology to my thoughts, and if I were saying them out loud, I’m sure I’d sound like a rambling madman. The fingers on my free hand play with the ends of her hair lying over my lap, and every single time she brings up a hand to lick her finger and turn the page, I grin. It must be a good book, she’s torn through fifteen or so pages in like, five minutes._

_This night, like all others this week, has been delightfully relaxing. Actually, it’s been like this since we moved in. Relaxing is great. I...I love to relax. But lately, how do you take a break and relax when all you do is relax?_

_Do I miss the excitement? The excitement is about all I miss, really. Unlike my adrenaline junkie wife, I was happiest during a mission when things went as planned._

_I guess I miss jetting off and dressing up to go somewhere insanely ostentatious. This makes me smile and look down as she flips another page, her studious and enthralled brown eyes bright and moving a mile a minute. She’d be proud of all the big words I’m using while lost in my thoughts._

_Maybe I miss speaking languages and conning my way past checkpoints or guards or pretty ladies that fawn over my suit and green eyes. I can’t help but roll them, annoyed at myself for the thought._

_Looking at her hair as it ran between my fingers, a couple of white flecked scars caught my eye as I remember the last time I sent the back of my knuckles into someone’s nose. A fond memory despite everything else in my world being a bit upside down at the time. It’s probably bad to take enjoyment in someone gurgling blood behind missing teeth and a horribly flattened nose, but c’est la vie. On récolte ce que l'on sème. You reap what you sow, one of my mother’s favorite things to hit me with when I got into trouble and tried to convince her to not punish me._

_Bringing the bottle to my lips I take another drink of the tasty ale._

_I definitely don’t miss the close calls. For either of us. That’s...not something I think anyone could miss, and it probably goes without saying. Or...thinking, in this case._

_I sure won’t miss the pain written on her face after a long-ass mission. The wince at almost every step but taking them anyway as she waited for the painkillers to kick in. Plenty of times at the airport picking her up all I wanted to do was wrap her up and squeeze her, but knew I couldn’t because of a bruised shoulder, or broken ribs, or whiplash. She always compartmentalized it until she was alone with me, and then it was all I could see. There were times I wished she still would have left the partitions up, but I knew that it was a sign of trust that she dropped them at all; it would be weird to ask for them to go back up._

_Pain was always a component. From day one. October first she sat in my office with bruises and that...honestly amazing dye-job, her hands rubbing her jaw because of the pulled teeth, and I don’t know how she did it. I mean...I still don’t know how she did it. A fifteen-hour flight, walk-in processing, debrief, writing a damn novel during said debrief._

_I let out a little chuckle into the neck of the beer taking another drink. The look on Weiss’s face as we each took turns reading page after page of what she wrote. I’m sure it matched my own; it was an amazing read. I’ll bet we devoured it like she was shredding her new book._

_Behind all of the pain, though, I saw who she was when she didn’t want me to even on that first day. Yeah she was trying to hide it, but maybe after everything along with being shown a little bit of trust, she’d opened up. The bruises had been earned through a crazy display of courage; the sore jaw had been earned through a nearly impossible show of strength; the determination in her eyes had been earned through heartache. The woman had and still has more willpower than a...uh…_

_Well...than a wizard class in D &D. Oof...showing my inner nerd. Weiss would have a field day with that one. _

_It’s hard to figure out when I fell in love with Sydney Bristow, honestly. It just...it was just a status I suddenly had one day. Like, I popped out of bed, and boom - in love. So I sat for months just...being in love. Watching her struggle and knowing I couldn’t do everything I could to make any of it easier._

_Parfois l'amour fait mal. Another thing my mom used to say: sometimes love is painful. She’d bring it up when talking about my dad as I grew up, and when I was something like...ten years old, I asked her why she spent so much time thinking about dad when it made her sad all the time. She’d give me that mom-look and say the line, sometimes in English, just to drive it home._

_Sometimes love is painful._

_The watch and finding it stopped. The red hair with the pulled teeth. The ache from the needle filled with adrenaline. The makeup covering the bruises but complaining about them anyway. The way her mascara ran from the rain when betrayed by her father. The stitches in her leg in the cabin. The bruises on her face from Luxembourg. The blood dripping from her chin in the room._

_Parfois l'amour fait mal, mais ce n'est pas la fin. Sometimes love is painful, but it’s not the end._

_Winding the watch and hearing the miracle of a tick. The brown hair, relief, and resolve on her face day one in the bloodmobile. That adrenaline shot being overshadowed by the same relief and bright, dimpled smile. The mascara smudge on the shoulder of a suit I never washed again after she leaned on me to cry. The two days in the cabin. The bruises covered in makeup earned when finding the killing blow. Luxembourg leading to moments in the corner of the warehouse. The evening in the London hotel where we shared a moment of normal. The moment she said hi over the phone after being silent for 49 days._

_Mom was right when she said it wasn’t the end. I can feel her head on my lap and we’re sitting in a warm living room inside an insane house I never thought I would own, her soft hair between my fingers, the book against her chest closed and marked under her hands, her brown eyes on mine as I peek down._

“You’re a loud thinker,” she commented in a whisper.

“I’m just watchin’ hockey,” he grinned, bringing the drink up again and noticing with a frown that the game was over, and likely had been for a while.

“You’re also a bad liar,” her smile didn’t disappear, nor did she move from the comfortable spot using his leg as a pillow. “Were they bad thoughts?”

Michael shook his head, and then wobbled it a bit, before deciding the negative once more. “A couple. I was reminiscing, I guess.”

“Tell me,” she gently pushed, and she heard him sigh, though it wasn’t one borne of anger or frustration. It seemed like he was more choosing his words. 

Her hand set against his chest pulling his attention back down. "Look where we are," she ordered, pointing toward the windows across the room.

His eyes followed and he smiled at the calm scene of the wave-washed beach under the silver crescent of the moon that kept the sky dark and full of stars.

"Yeah. Everything else is literally miles away. Just tell me the good thoughts." Reaching out she cast her book to the coffee table and turned curious eyes back up. Sharing equal rights to his facial features was worry, contentment, and wonder.

He smiled with a nod and looked down, his hand moving from her hair to brush his knuckles against her cheek.

"I was just thinking about loving you."

Lifting her up a moment so he could slouch down farther into the couch, he got comfortable and let his head fall back. Her fingers reached up and looped through his over her chest in an entangled lump.

"What was your first thought in my office?" he asked.

Sydney frowned in confusion. "What?"

"You know," he gestured in a circle with his other hand, "when you walked in. What did you think?"

"About you?"

"Well sure, but…even just in general. What thoughts were going through your head? I never asked but I’ve always wondered."

"Why? That was forever ago, Vaughn," she asked with an airy laugh.

"I remember you sitting there with your hand on your jaw staring, and I was worried that I had to go and talk to a crazy person."

That made her laugh. "You weren’t as far from the truth as you may think. I was pretty...single-minded back then."

"So what were you thinking about? I know you remember."

Sydney sighed deciding to go for complete honesty. "That photo of you and Alice on your desk."

It didn’t look like he’d been prepared for that answer, and though he didn’t lift his head to focus his shocked eyes downward, she saw the surprise. “Seriously?”

“Not...I didn’t know either of you. So, not like that. It just...looked nice. It reminded me of Danny and what I’d lost, so I just...fixated on it, I guess. I sat in that mini conference room alone for like, two hours, and then another twenty minutes in your office. I'd pretty much run out of meaningful thoughts by the time you walked in."

“Huh,” he huffed.

“What were you thinking?” She turned the conversation to him.

“When?”

Sydney rolled her eyes and spotted the dimple on his cheek accompanying his snarky grin.

“When you were writing out your statement I wasn’t sure what to think. An Alliance walk-in...I assumed it was an old guy like Jack. Finding someone my age in an all-black outfit with bright red hair was not what I’d been expecting.”

“Stupid bozo hair, I believe is what you said.”

“You know,” he mused, “having a wife with perfect memory is gonna get me in trouble.”

They shared a quiet laugh before both minds got lost in thought. 

“I was impressed by your strength,” he paused, “and though it was obvious that you were strong, I saw this incredible frailty.” He felt her head twist sharply, the rounded back digging into the skin of his thigh. “Stop, not like that,” he assured. “I just...I saw through your armor.”

She seemed to settle a bit. “Were you just thinking about October first?”

“Parfois l'amour fait mal.”

She frowned, “sometimes love is painful. Meaning...”

Michael nodded. “It was something my mom used to say. I didn’t really understand what that meant until I met you.”

The moment the words left his mouth he knew it hadn’t come out the way he’d intended. In his mind, it had been some beautiful revelation about each moment of hardship being shadowed, fore and aft, by true love.

“Wait...that’s,” he tried, Sydney interrupting to move, a dark frown on her face as she folded her legs under her body now perched facing him at the opposite end of the cushion. “Hang on...let me finish.”

“Loving me is _painful_?”

Vaughn genuinely didn’t want to have the night go this way, but it was officially too late. It had been quiet and blissful and he longed for a time machine. On the other hand, he desperately wanted to be truthful and knew that anything less would be to his detriment. 

"Yes. There have been times when," he paused, picking his words as he too sat up straight, "when loving you was _very_ painful, but the point isn't the painful parts, and that's what I was getting to."

"That doesn't make any sense." She was angry, understandably so, but she knew she owed him the benefit of the doubt. She'd give it...eventually.

Vaughn sighed. "I honestly don't know when my admiration turned into more, and I can't tell you when I started needing to hear your voice to get through my week. Before the cabin; before Nice; just...before. So yeah. Loving you then was painful."

Her reaction was to tuck her loose hair behind her ear and drop her eyes to the space she’d put between them.

"When I was a kid, my dad gave me his watch and told me to count the seconds until he came home. I wasn't kidding when I told you I could set my heart by the damn thing, that's what he’d said. The day he was supposed to come home I found it stopped and I panicked." 

He paused and looked to where she sat listening. Still angry, but listening at least.

"Before that I was happy; after that I was happy, but had sadness. I always remember my dad fondly but...truth be told, he was a hardass. Not Jack Bristow hard, but he really rode me even though I was just a kid. The point is that I got to choose the love _and_ the pain. The happy thoughts were still painful, but less so than remembering all the times he'd punished me for not finishing my homework or breaking something in the house or leaving my bike in the yard."

"I get it," she said, and he could hear the sadness behind her words. 

"Sometimes love is painful, and we both felt that when you found me in France. For _days_ I couldn't lift my arms from the muscle soreness due to that massive adrenaline injection," he met her when her eyes flicked up to his.

Sydney wasn't sure what she expected to see there, but not one thing was out of place. His green eyes shone with love, per usual.

"Seeing your face," he couldn't contain the grin that came with that memory. "That smile was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. You didn't even look like you, but that smile. I think that's the minute I was relieved to know that you loved me. Maybe that’s hindsight. The pain in my chest was worth it because now I knew knowing that there wasn't anything either of us could do about it."

She was beginning to understand. She'd overreacted, as was usual for her, and as was the norm with him, he didn’t point it out.

Sydney spoke, catching him by surprise. "Walking away from the cabin was painful." _'But I wouldn't have changed those two days for anything.'_

Michael agreed with a nod. "So was the hotel," he added. "Leaving you at the hotel was bad enough, but then...you didn’t come home."

Sydney bit at the inside corner of her lip as her eyes trailed away looking at nothing in particular while she thought. Vaughn’s, however, were fixed on her. The worry lines around her mouth and the kink in her forehead between her eyes had been missing for weeks, and he was genuinely sorry to see them return. Amidst her thoughts she must have found something comforting, her hand coming to rest over the growing bump of her stomach, and he smiled softly.

“It was painful every time the light on the camera turned off,” she said quietly.

"Love is watching someone die," he whispered and saw a sheen of tears in her eyes. "Parfois l'amour fait mal, mais ce n'est pas la fin."

Reaching out his hand, his fingers brushed the back of hers over her stomach, pulling her back from wherever she'd ventured.

"It isn't the end," he promised.

**...**

“If her first word is _‘analysis’_ we’ll know this was a bad idea,” Sydney laughed from behind her book, one hand holding it up while the other wove patterns through his hair with her fingers. His head rested cheek-down over their growing child as he read aloud a stapled report he’d been working on, and he paused with a laugh.

“If she’s anything like you, she’ll hate doing analysis,” he grinned and set the papers aside. Rolling to his stomach and propping his head on his palm, the other hand reached out to rub a circle over the bump.

Sydney made a gruff sound from the back of her throat, “Ugh, I hope she takes a different path. I hope she’s a doctor or teacher, or just...something that doesn’t involve wearing a wig.”

He laughed. “I don’t know, I think she’ll probably look pretty cute in a tiny red wig.”

Flopping the book down against the bedspread she laughed looking down at him, sparkling brown eyes meeting green. Her hand reached out and she traced the dimple on his chin with her pointer finger.

“You’re happy, right?” Her question caught him off guard and it showed on his face.

“Insanely,” he promised.

“Even if I go to teach and you just...work from home?”

Vaughn nodded. “Besides, we’ll have the little bean here soon to command every waking moment of our lives,” he smiled and pressed a kiss against the side of her stomach, a rumble against his lips making him jump.

“That...was...did she-”

“Did you feel that?”

He nodded dumbly as his hand spread across the swell, another little flutter against his palm pulling the air from his lungs. It was his turn to flop from normal to flooded with an irrational amount of emotion, and he felt his heart grow tight in his chest while pushing up a brick of feels into the back of his throat. His chin quivered and his vision blurred behind a veil of tears, the warm trails left behind as the drops landed and soaked into her shirt stretched over their bundle.

“That’s what I wanted to give you a few weeks ago,” she whispered as her own eyes filled while watching him reverently caress her stomach.

Biting at the inside of his cheek, Michael let out a watery laugh as he shook his head. “All I can think of is what she’s going to be like.”

Wiping at her cheeks, “where are we gonna even find a tiny red wig?”

Vaughn laughed from his stomach, pushing up and over her to catch her lips with his as he splayed his hand back over her belly and feeling the tiny movement. “I don’t think we’ll ever get tired of that feeling, do you?”

**…**

“She’s dancing on my liver,” Sydney groaned as she reclined beside him on the couch, her hand pushing against the large growth of her stomach as he laughed and reached to set his just above hers in time to feel a solid kick from their daughter who was due in just under a week.

“Settle down in there, bean,” he ordered, another thump against his palm making him wince. “Definitely a kickboxer. Contractions?"

“Ugh,” she grunted and tried to adjust against the cushions to find a comfortable spot. “No, well...probably more Braxton hicks. I’m not gonna make it another few days, let’s just...pop it,” she begged.

Michael laughed and hopped up, “I’ll grab the heating pad for your back, maybe it’ll help settle her down.”

She reached out to him, “I have to pee again anyway.” 

He helped her up as they headed two different directions. Barely down the hallway, her voice called out.

“Hey, Vaughn?”

“Yeah?”

There was a pause and she didn’t answer, so he stopped just inside the nursery, his eyes catching the heating pad on the rocking chair. Sticking his head back out into the hallway he looked toward the other end of the house where she had called out.

“Syd?”

“Don’t panic, okay?”

He panicked. “If you don’t want me to panic, don’t start with _‘don’t panic’_.”

“My water may have broken.”

He panicked some more. “May have? Did...did it?!”

“Seriously, it’s fine.”

Adrenaline kicked him into high gear and he tore the rest of the way into the room grabbing the prepared diaper bag, secondary baby bag, and brand new car seat, piling everything into his arms before jumping to the hallway and heading next door into the master bedroom.

Sydney rolled her eyes with a grin as she followed to change out of her wet clothes and prep for the drive to the clinic. “Vaughn, _don’t_ panic.”

“I’m not panicking,” he announced in a rush, his voice a higher pitch, and she watched him from across the room pick up her oversized bag with the free pinky on one hand, the pinky on the other hand extending the handle of the roll-on suitcase so he could drag it behind him.

“Yes you are. At least let me carry something.” He opened his mouth but she cut him off, “and don’t say that I’m already carrying something,” she ordered, gesturing to her round belly.

His mouth closed and his eyes looked side to side before meeting hers, “I wasn’t going to,” he mumbled and, like a sherpa, ferried everything from the room toward the car in the garage.

...

Michael watched his family sleep, the baby in the portable bed sated from her first meal and Sydney passed out against the pillow after nearly thirteen hours of labor and another two of visitors and nurses and training with their new daughter. She’d been plonked into his arms for a few minutes until the waiting room full of people came in, his mother commandeering the newborn as the new father moved to sit next to Sydney, and since that moment he’d been waiting for a chance to hold her again.

"Do you all need anything?" The kind nurse poked her head in again seeing the young man standing with his arms crossed over his chest looking down at the new baby.

"I...think we're okay."

She'd seen that look a hundred times. Offering a comforting smile she stepped into the room. "Tell me you’re not afraid of a little seven-pound baby. Weren't you a spy?"

At her entrance and the fact that she was staying, he relaxed with a laugh. “Spying I knew how to do. I...I have no clue how to do,” he gestured at the infant, “this.”

"You can pick her up, you know."

He fidgeted, his arms unrolling as his hands folded, unfolded, folded again. "I don't know how to pick her up and it freaks me out. I feel like I’m going to break her."

His honesty was refreshing, and she said so with a warm laugh. "The best way to figure things out is to ask, young man. Have you held her at all yet?"

"Once, but they kinda...handed her to me. Then my mom stole and kept her all evening."

The nurse chuckled with a knowing nod and came to the side of the makeshift bassinet. Holding out her hands with palms up, she waited for him to match her pose.

"Flat hands, slide, and then lift. She's bundled up good and tight so she isn't floppy, but that's an issue with the new little ones. Always support the head, that's very important."

He expected her to show him and then hand him the baby, but when he saw her expectant eyes, his heart rate jumped and his palms broke out with sweat.

 _‘Flat hands...slide...lift,’_ his new mantra went through his head as he mimicked her position. Slowly inching forward, he succeeded at merely poking the infant, making her grunt and a little wrinkle twist her pink face. He pulled back as the experienced woman laughed.

Trying again, he finally felt the weight of the little one against his palms as warmth passed from his hands into the wrapped blankets. _‘Now what?’_ Both of his hands were in place, one under the head and the other under the round padded bottom, but he had no idea how to get the infant from a plank position into the crook of his elbow; and which elbow should she rest against? He’d placed his right hand beneath her head, but he was left-handed, so now everything felt awkward.

“That...doesn’t really count,” she whispered seeing that the new father had frozen with the child only a breath away from the blanket below. 

“I’m left-handed,” he said quietly, “I think I’m doing it wrong.”

The nurse ticked through her teeth, “goodness, you’re adorable. It’s fine, honey. Lift up and then slide her head into your elbow.”

“Which elbow?”

“You’re overthinking this.”

Vaughn set the baby back against the blanket and pulled his hands away to wipe them against his thighs. “Lemme try again,” he grumbled, determined to get it right.

The beaming care-worker gestured for him to give it another shot as she tried to hold back her giggles. Michael switched hands, though that didn’t work as they were now crossed in front of him. So he then switched sides before ending up in the same position with the infant an inch or so above the pad and blanket as the plastic edge of the bassinet bit the bottoms of his forearms. Stepping in before his fourth attempt, she moved his right arm around and under to set length-wise to the baby’s back, moved behind him to grab his elbows, and then lifted his arms.

“Woah...wait,” he panicked, but the motion was happening. Instinct took over and his lizard brain screamed _‘don’tdropwhateveryoudodeargodyoumakesureyoudodon’tdrop’_ all in a rushed, split-second thought. Panting through flared nostrils, his green eyes looked down into the scrunched face of his daughter as she tucked perfectly into the crook of his elbow still soundly sleeping through his crisis.

“See? That wasn’t so hard, was it?” The nurse patted his arm before leaving the room, the door latching in her wake.

Minutes ticked by marked by the clock on the far wall of the room, and a creeping muscle ache in his lower back was seeking to remind him that he hadn’t moved for at least ten. Shuffling his steps and trying to keep his upper body as stiff and unmoving as possible, he made his way over to the plush-looking chair across from the bed at a snail's pace before bending at the knees to sit as gingerly as he could. 

The dark patch of hair atop her head was hidden behind the tiny pink beanie, and he was very excited that she would be a little Sydney clone running around the house. Her eyes, though closed right now, were a newborn blue, and the parents along with everyone else that night had wondered aloud if they were going to end up being brown, green, or a mix of the two. 

“Don’t rush, little bean,” he mused in a whisper. “You’re going to grow up fast enough as it is, so...take your time.” 

He brushed a light finger over her pink cheek to the tip of her tiny button nose, and he chuckled behind a huff of air. “Thankfully, you have your mother’s nose.”

She seemed to agree with him, the tiny arms and legs swaddled behind soft cotton moving a bit as her face scrunched. Her puckered lips moved and sucked at the air a few times before she settled down with a little grunt and a squeak, and Vaughn couldn’t help the broad smile and excited gasp as the newborn snuggled back down into the cocoon. 

“You are going to have so many people wrapped around your finger,” he mused. “I don’t know how not to spoil you. I...want to give you everything so you can be whatever you want to be. Maybe...president?”

She squirmed again, her face turning a shade of red as she grunted with another squeak, Michael chuckling at her response. “Okay, okay. Not president.” His voice calmed her down a little, though she still seemed restless.

"What do you think about being a pilot, then?" His bright pink daughter wrinkled again, her mouth starting to open in anticipation of a weak cry. "That's not the one either?" It took a few more tries. Not a broadcaster, not a writer, not even a mathematician. He didn’t actually think she was hearing anything more than the tone of his voice, but every parent thought their child was brilliant, so maybe she was ahead just enough to understand him?

 _‘Nah,’_ he thought.

"How do you feel about being a teacher?" He winced, expecting the face. Instead, she relaxed and yawned with a tiny coo.

“Of course,” he grinned, his eyes shifting over to Sydney where she was out cold, not even a mumbled word passing her lips while she slept. “Well, you’re already making her proud at just three-hours-old.”

One tiny hand curled around the edge of the blanket, Michael slipping the point of his finger underneath the tiny digits. With a grip as strong as a newborn could muster, she clutched at his fingertip.

“You’re strong just like her, you know. Isabelle, I have absolutely no idea how to do any of this. I had to ask how to pick you up.” The infant seemed blissfully unaware of his worries as she clung to him and slept. “Cut me some slack, okay? There’s only so much books and baby classes prepared me for, and I have a hunch it’s way more complicated than all that.”

The reclining chair was comfortable and he felt the day beginning to pull at him. Propping his legs up on the ottoman and leaning back, his hands shifted her from the crook of his elbow to a tiny curled spot underneath his chin and over his heart. As a heavy breath left his chest, his daughter burrowed deeper against his warmth and into his heart with an itty-bitty sigh of comfort that matched.

**...**


	33. Epilogue Part 4: Domestication

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [](https://www.flickr.com/photos/190971129@N06/50678121937/in/dateposted/)

**Epilogue Part 4: Domestication**

Sydney sighed contentedly as she pushed the button to close the heavy gate behind her, watching it secure completely before driving the quarter-mile up the sand-packed driveway to the beach home. The sun was setting to her left and she rolled the windows of the sedan down to let the salty cool air of the evening blow through her hair.

The lights were on in the living room, the interior visible through the clear large windows at the front of the home, though she knew due to the time displayed on the dash that Vaughn would have just finished feeding their daughter and was likely into the process of starting or finishing bathtime.

The light was welcoming in the otherwise dark garage as she pulled in the car and watched from the mirror as the door closed behind her. Stepping out, her flats slapping against the concrete floor, she walked around the garage and in between her car and the SUV parked in the second spot before determining that everything was clear. Opening the passenger door she lifted her purse and a large tote bag, folders and binders stacked to the brim in the canvas between the cloth handles. 

Slinging it over her shoulder she closed and locked the car before moving to the interior door. The keypad beeped as she punched in the code, the mechanism unlocking the door. Pushing the handle down with her elbow the welcoming cool air of the home hit her face carrying with it the savory scent of rosemary and other herbs wafting from the kitchen down the hall toward the garage. She keyed in the code on the panel, the lock re-engaging and sealing off the exit.

Walking the wooden floors she stepped into the kitchen finding it empty. The highchair was next to the table on the plastic mat, the tray covered in splats of something the baby had been eating not too long ago. The deep black stone countertops reflected the hanging overhead lights, and she spotted chicken cooked to herby perfection carved in a dish on the stovetop surrounded by roasted potatoes and asparagus.

"God I love when he cooks," she said quietly and set her bags on the counter before sneaking a piece of the juicy and delicate meat.

Groaning in delight at the taste, she left the kitchen and entered the living room. A bright yellow sticky note caught her attention on the long table behind the couch, and she grinned at his scrawled message.

' _ New record: 6 _ '. Beneath the note were six small scraps of paper with various phone numbers, names, and Xs and Os. She laughed remembering that he'd taken Isabelle to a library class earlier, as she had done the week before. Despite the wedding ring, a potentially single dad at these classes was like a unicorn, and he always came back with some desperate housewife, nanny, or even grandmother’s information slyly slipped into the diaper bag or handed to him directly.

The ceiling of the large living area arched upward and massive picture windows splashed the orange hue of sunset on the walls. Sydney took a moment to watch the waves glisten with a fiery shimmer before moving through toward the bedrooms. The light shone from both the baby’s room and the master farther down the hall, and she heard the sound of splashing from the small nursery bathroom.

Sneaking past, she undid buttons and tossed the shirt to the open hamper across the room, the dress pants following. She was exhausted but knew Vaughn needed a break. With the nightmarish week of Isabelle getting in molars, neither of them had gotten much sleep. Before she'd left the house for classes, their daughter had spent most of the morning crying, whining, and gnashing at wet washcloths. 

The carpet was soft under her stocking feet, and down the hall she could hear high-pitched giggles accompanied by a calm deeper voice. She flopped back onto the soft bed after peeling the knee-high hose from her lower legs readying herself to get the baby to sleep to give her husband a much-needed reprieve.

Discarding both the bra and panties, she tugged soft cotton pajama pants over her hips and grabbed a camisole from the top drawer of her dresser. Heaving a sigh, she left her hair down around her shoulders but slipped a tie around her wrist knowing that the first tug on the tresses from the ten-month-old would make her pull it up and away as best as she could.

“I’m home,” she called out as she stepped into the doorway of the child’s bedroom, a mess of toys and books scattered across the floor. Winding a path through to the attached bathroom she looked in to see Michael seated on a stool next to the tub as their daughter stood inside the porcelain rim with her chubby little hands on the edge bouncing up and down. Brown hair that matched her mother’s was stuck to the top of her head, only now getting long enough to hang down the back of her neck, and the smell of baby shampoo filled the room.

She greeted her mother with a bright dimpled smile, teeth at the top and bottom white and gleaming, and Vaughn leaned behind the baby to undo the plug and begin to drain the water. Lifting the plastic cup he rinsed her off with a splash, Sydney gathering the fluffy terry cloth towel in her arms as the little girl reached excitedly for her mother.

“How was your day?” she asked, helping her husband up from the tiny chair as he grunted, using the momentum to lean in and press a kiss to her shoulder before she bent down to wrap the squawking child and heft her out of the tub.

“You put her to bed and I’ll get our dinner ready,” he said, and she could hear the exasperation in his voice. Placing a kiss on his daughter’s moist forehead and another against his wife’s lips, he left the room heading toward the kitchen.

The quiet of the living room was a godsend, the bath the only time the baby hadn’t been clingy and crying that day. Her nap had really only been tossing and turning, and for the forty minutes she’d managed to sleep he’d crashed next to her. Sydney didn’t have to teach tomorrow, so he would be able to catch up on work and they could tag-team the grumpy baby.

The savory smell of the chicken reminded him of the dinner he’d prepared as Isabelle was distracted in the bouncy seat, watching with bright blue-green eyes as she chewed on the frozen rubber ring. His stomach growled loudly as he popped the cork on a bottle of wine. Creating two plates of food and setting them in the microwave to wait, he preemptively poured two glasses of wine. 

It sounded like a fight. Isabelle squalled as Sydney tried everything from soothing poetry, singing a song, and finally reasoning. She even bribed her with a pony. Through it all he stayed in the kitchen knowing he’d be more of a hindrance than a help, and he heard the moment that his wife gave up and decided for a third night in a row to breastfeed their daughter to sleep. She’d been weaning her the past couple of weeks, but on trying nights gave up in order to get the little girl down. Teething was definitely giving them some trying nights.

Pouring the second glass back into the bottle with the funnel next to the sink, he grabbed and filled a cup instead with ice water.

The moment he heard her feet pad toward the kitchen he hit the button on the microwave to reheat dinner. Leaning casually against the counter with his arms crossed over his chest with a soft smile, he watched as she set the baby monitor on the island and looked over the mail he’d tossed down earlier. Going to step past and reach for the glass of water, Michael’s hand intercepted her wrist and pulled her into his chest.

“Hi,” he mumbled as his arms wrapped around her waist, hers clutching his shoulders before diving up into his shortened hair from the haircut he’d gotten earlier in the week.

“Hi,” she answered, and their lips met softly.

His fingers slid under the hem of her camisole and tickled the soft skin of her lower back as their mouths broke apart, foreheads pressed together as they relaxed in the solace of one another.

The beeping pulled them apart, the two talking about their days over the meal. Afterward, she picked up her plate and stood, reaching for his though he waved her off. 

"You cooked,” she grinned, his eyebrows lifting.

“So?”

She rolled her eyes and lifted his plate anyway. “You cook, I clean.”

Vaughn followed anyway, their empty glasses in his hands. “Why, Mrs. Vaughn, how domestic of you.”

Sydney loved it when he called her by his last name. While she truly enjoyed being domestic with him, something so far removed from her life before, he knew it pushed her buttons when he goaded it out. Picking up the end of a leftover asparagus stalk she tossed it at him, the wet vegetable hitting his arm before plopping to the tile floor.

“And now you’re gonna have to mop,” he laughed, Sydney settling the mess into the sink and turning on the water.

“You really don’t want to get laid tonight, do you?”

He chuckled and moved to her left, opening the dishwasher. “You’ll sleep with me anyway. All I have to do is,” he paused and leaned closer to her ear, “turn on the sex voice.”

She felt the shiver shimmer across her skin but tried to play it off with a shove of her elbow and they fell into a routine of rinsing and loading everything into the machine. The buttons beeped as he turned it on, the water churning behind the closed metal door. Turning, he found her perched on the counter with a grin, his eyes immediately falling to the perky nipples jutting from beneath the taut fabric of the camisole, and he immediately knew she wasn’t wearing anything underneath. The knowledge kinked the edge of his mouth up as he wiped his hands on his jeans and stepped into the opening of her legs.

She leaned forward slightly and he followed suit, though a cold wet dishtowel ended up over his head hanging down in front of his face. Her laugh from behind the shroud she’d hit him with forced a sigh from his lips that billowed the moist fabric outward.

One hand gripped her thigh as the other pulled the cloth from his head, and the mirth in her eyes surrounded by the encroaching purple hue made his trousers tighten and his eyes darken. His arms surrounded her as her parted lips met his for a soft kiss.

“You forgot to pick up the asparagus,” she whispered after they broke apart, and he could feel her smile.

“You threw it; you pick it up.”

She shook her head and he caught her mouth again, his tongue sweeping gently across hers and pulling a humming moan from her throat. Sydney’s hand clutched the back of his neck holding him tighter as their lips dueled, breaking apart only to suck in a deep simultaneous breath.

“If you’re going to be throwing food around, you’ll have to go to time out,” he said, his words brushing her lips. 

“I’m not sure that's,” she paused to press a kiss to his bottom lip, “that’s the best punishment you could think of, is it?”

Whimpering of their little one followed by a sobbing cry broke the moment, Michael sighing and dropping his forehead to her shoulder as she chuckled and loosened her hold with both arms and legs. 

“Or, I could go take care of Izzy while you finish cleaning up,” she offered and he nodded, untangling and helping her off the counter. 

A half-hour later, mostly successful, Sydney made her way back into the kitchen to find it clean and empty, the droning sound of television leading her into the living room. Vaughn was lying on the couch as the hockey game played in the background, another glass of wine on the end table.

“She go down?”

“Yeah, this teething thing is just…” she left off and slid in beside him as he turned to spoon around her, the pair watching the end of the game.

Sydney was dipping a toe into the land of sleep when she felt a finger brush her hair away from her neck before his lips danced soft kisses along her skin. A hum escaped her throat but she didn’t move, so he continued his ministrations against the column of her throat making sure to hit the sensitive spots where it dipped into her shoulder and just below her ear tasting her perfume.

Inching her hips back she pressed her backside into his groin eliciting a grumble from his chest, and his body pushed up as she rolled back ending up mostly beneath him, their legs staggered together.

As his free hand slipped beneath the camisole she pulled his mouth down to hers as her fingers began to undo the buttons of his shirt.

“We can’t here,” he mumbled against her lips, “gotta move,” pulling back to yank the shirt from where it had been tucked in his waistband, awkward with the position he was in half above her and half tucked against the back of the couch.

“You’re not exactly fighting it,” she said with a hint of smarm in her voice.

“Do you want to have another baby in ten months?”

Her response was a wincing laugh. “Maybe we should start stashing condoms around the house till she's weaned and I'm cleared for birth control.” Michael grinned at her suggestion and sat up before moving to stand, holding a hand out for her to join him. 

Once off the couch she went straight into his arms, Vaughn catching her lips in another breathless kiss. Hefting her up, her legs locking around his waist as she clung to his shoulders, she was all airy giggles as he turned and made his way toward the bedroom, her hand grabbing the baby monitor as they passed by. Perching it on the nightstand after kicking the bedroom door mostly closed, they fell on the bed in a tangle of groping limbs and exploring mouths. It had been a little more than a week since they’d had the energy to even think about getting frisky, and while the play was enough to catch the fire of interest alight in the pair, the finish line was certainly more enticing at the moment.

He sat up and grabbed the hem of his shirt before hauling it over his head to forgo the buttons, Sydney doing the same with her top as they ended up tossed across the room, Vaughn falling back down as their lips crashed together again. Her fingernails skimmed his shoulder blades, one going up to his neck as the other went to the small of his back meeting the hem of his jeans.

“You’re gonna need to take your pants off,” she laughed, though it turned into a groan as his mouth redirected to her throat to suck a love bite into the juncture of her shoulder and neck.

“Nah,” he ground into her ear, nipping at the lobe.

Sydney traced the edge of the fabric with her finger around to the front, but the moment it dipped behind the copper button a squalling cry came over the speaker on the nightstand. Both parents froze. 

“Just...she’ll go back to sleep,” Michael said, though it was more of a prayer than a statement. 

His prayer went unanswered, the baby letting out a loud and long plaintive wail. With a groan born this time not from pleasure, he pushed to sit back on his haunches and looked to the ceiling with tightly closed eyes.

“I got her,” Sydney sat up and pulled her legs from around him, grabbing her camisole from the floor and yanking it over her head. The seams showed along her sides and the tag was sticking out from her chest indicating that it was both backward and inside-out, but she didn’t seem to care. “Those pants had better be off by the time I get back,” she ordered, Vaughn grinning back at her as his hands immediately moved to his waist, and the clinking sound of his loosened belt chased her into the hallway.

Shuffling off the bed he shoved the jeans and boxers from his hips in one motion, hopping on one foot for a moment as he tried to kick them off. Yanking the bedside drawer open he grabbed the square foil package and ripped the corner open with his teeth. Clambering back onto the bed he listened in the monitor as Sydney cooed at their daughter in an effort to get her back to sleep, long minutes crawling by as he heard her move quickly into the kitchen, the freezer door opening, and the chewable frozen ring extracted. Their secret weapon. She wasn’t playing any games tonight, and for that he was thankful. Hard and thankful.

Eventual silence followed by Sydney’s whispered, “ _ yessss,” _ came through the speaker, and to her quick footsteps in the hallway his hand grasped his hardness in anticipation, slipping on the condom.

“No pants, as ordered,” he announced as she hit the doorway, her purple-hued eyes taking in the scene as the top came off once more. How she was able to walk out of her pajama pants he would never know, but the sight of her nude and climbing over him from the other end of the bed pooled desire low in his stomach. 

Sydney’s mouth descended over his once more as his hands ran from her upper back to her backside, his left lifting a bit to come down with a slap.

“That’s for the asparagus,” he chuckled, a second slap pulling a groan from her chest as she moved her lower half up to align the blunt tip with her moist center. Both of his hands clutched and squeezed as she pushed herself back to sheathe him inside her body quickly.

With her palms on either side of his head, she felt his groan against her skin as the rumble in his chest vibrated against her sensitive breasts. A clatter across the speaker followed by a disgruntled cry made them both pause again, and they knew she’d tossed the teething ring in a fit of grump and it had managed to slip between the rails of the crib.

“Look,” Vaughn panted. “She can cry for two minutes. It won’t kill her,” he suggested, though he figured that the two-minute comment was generous. He felt near to bursting just being surrounded by her warmth and knew she was just as close when she nodded.

Lifting with his hands he tilted her forward, her nose burying against his throat as his thighs propped up against her straddling backside, this position giving his hips the freedom to move. His pace was hurried, the half-thrusts pounding up and slapping their lower stomachs together, and he felt her first orgasm against his member before hearing the mewl in his ear as her muscles tightened along her back and shoulders as his hands rubbed across her skin. Her hands clutched at his pillow from underneath his head and he missed feeling her fingernails skimming his scalp as she clung to him.

The crying over the monitor intensified as their daughter grew fussier each second, though hearing it past the blood roaring in their ears was becoming more and more difficult. Normally he gave her a moment to come down from the first one, but not tonight. She knew she would have finger-shaped bruises on her hips if not the next day, the day after, and his gravelly groan into her hair told her how close he was as she tiptoed at the edge of another pool of wanton electricity. His surge upward and the tightening of every muscle in his body triggered her second and they came together, the sound of their staggered breathing overtaken by the frustrated and now angry little one in the other room.

Panting against his neck for a few extra seconds, the baby’s cry reached a fever pitch as she must have been wondering exactly where her normally very attentive parents were. 

“Parenting is hard,” she muttered sitting up, Vaughn chuckling below her.

“It’ll get easier.”

**…**

“No!” Vaughn’s eyebrows shot up as he crossed his arms over his chest and stared down at his defiant daughter, two sets of green eyes meeting in the middle to clash like fired lasers from opposite canons.

“Izzy,” he warned, pointing to the mess the girl had left in the living room. “Time to clean up and have a nap.”

“No! I don’t nap ‘cuz I’m not tired!” Punctuating her rant by rubbing the back of her hand against her left eye, Vaughn wondered why he and Sydney had been so eager when their child had become vocal so quickly. At three their little commander was speaking in nearly full sentences and learning to trace letters and numbers, and she wasn’t afraid to turn her intelligence on her parents.

Thus began negotiations.

“You can have five minutes to put away the toys you don’t want to take for a nap.”

“I can take some for nappy time?”

“Yes. You can pick toys you want to take with you.”

“Show me,” she demanded, reaching for his arm and poking a chubby finger to the face of his watch. 

With a grin the exasperated father dutifully pointed, “when the long one touches the three, time’s up.”

Five minutes to a toddler was an eternity, and though she stomped her foot and pouted, she nodded and bounced her ponytail. She took his hand and led him to the living room where she made one pile of toys on the couch and another on the reclining chair, babbling the whole time as if she were weighing pros and cons to decide which was worthy to share her naptime.

“Time’s up,” he announced, looking at his watch. It wasn’t exactly up, but he knew she would use this ploy to push past the time and delay even longer the nap for which he’d desperately been waiting.

_ ‘Maybe she won’t call me on it,’ _ he thought.

“Show me,” she asked again, waddling over to where he stood. “It’s not on da free, daddy,” she said matter-of-factly and moved back to the two piles leaving Vaughn to rub a hand over his face.

“Okay, bean, one more minute.”

“When it has da free.”

“Yes, when it's on the three.”

She moved back to check the watch, big green eyes looking up when she knew time was up. “Dis one,” she said, pointing to the dozen or so toys she chose to accompany them, and the pair scooped them up and carried them to the bedroom. 

The small wooden bed painted half purple and half green as she had loved both was filled with toys, each tucked in around the little girl. As he pressed a kiss to her forehead and wished her, “good sleeps,” a tiny hand flew out and caught his shirt.

“One story, daddy?”

_ ‘She pushes every button I have and then melts my heart. Is it going to be like this every day?’ _

“Izzy, it’s past time for naps.”

He expected another fight, but behind her watery green eyes he saw wheels turning. “Two for beddy time?”

Bedtime was Sydney’s domain. “Sure, two stories at bedtime.”

“Tell mommy,” she commanded and rolled over, a fluffy purple platypus pulled against her chest as she closed her eyes and fell asleep almost instantly.

Closing the door save for a crack, Michael grabbed several files from the office and scattered them across the larger kitchen table to get some work done while she napped. An hour later, he peeked in and found Isabelle still sound asleep.

_ ‘Might as well check out the game from last night,’ _ he thought, moving to the couch and flipping on the television.

Opening his eyes, his heart slammed into his sternum as he took in the late-afternoon sun reflecting on the wall and he realized that he’d fallen asleep. A small pink blanket was draped over his chest and lap, and he sat up in a panic until two feminine voices echoed from the other room.

“Can I, mommy?” 

“I’ll chop and you mix it up in the bowl,” Sydney answered, and his worry dropped to manageable levels. Standing with a groan, he picked up the dropped blanket and tossed it back to the cushion.

"I do dinner, daddy!”

Running a hand over his face he stepped into the kitchen and heaved a relieved sigh. “I’m sorry...I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”

“Naps are good,” Isabelle chimed in as she used her tiny hands like a bowl and scooped up the carrots putting them into the bowl with the potatoes and stirring them around, the tip of her tongue poking out from the corner of her mouth. “I helped!”

“I see that,” he commented and stepped in to press a kiss to Sydney’s cheek and the top of their daughter’s head as she stood on the step stool. “No daddy, come see.”

“Before you panic, know that I’ve already retyped everything for Kendall. I left the one for my dad as is though, he’ll get a kick out of it,” she winked with a soft smile as he frowned.

He was confused, but his daughter grabbed his hand and led him to the table. As she climbed onto a chair, Vaughn’s gaze landed on his paperwork and saw what she meant by ‘helped’. His eyes sped across the room to the art nook and spotted the crayons, paints, and markers right where they belonged, though evidence of their use was across all of his reports due the next day. From the citrus scent that lingered, he knew that the table had also suffered from the art project Isabelle had made of his assignments.

“See? So pretty!”

“It sure is, thank you for helping sweetheart,” he said, pressing another kiss to the top of her head before carrying her back over and setting on the stool to continue helping prepare dinner. “Thank you for saving me,” he whispered, a kiss to his wife’s temple followed with a chuckle.

“How long was I out?”

She shrugged and focused on chopping the celery, Isabelle taking the pieces and mixing them in with the carrots, an occasional one finding its way into her mouth with a crunch. “I got home and Izzy was helping with your reports after covering you with a blanket. It was pretty cute.”

“I shouldn’t have sat down to watch the game,” he muttered, Sydney buzzing through her lips.

“It’s fine, we’ve Izzy-proofed the bad stuff. Besides, I think it adds a certain air of professionalism, wouldn’t you say, little bean?”

“Perfesh’nalism, daddy.”

**…**

Soft fingers ran through her hair, Isabelle waking slowly and turning to curl into her mother’s legs as she tried to get cozy and go back to sleep.

“Come on, bean, it’s past time to get up. Daddy already left for work,” Sydney crooned seeing the green eyes open with slow blinks.

The mother continued her prodding before getting up and heading to the dresser across the room. “What do you want to wear today?”

“Can I be something?” The little question was still filled with sleep as the four and a half year old with tousled brown hair sat up.

“What do you want to be?”

“A cowboy.” Much like everything else she said, it was so matter-of-fact and precise, and Sydney smiled. 

“A cowboy? Okay. Let’s be a cowboy today.”

Rewarded with a beaming smile and mischievous giggle, Isabelle leaped out of bed and the pair got dressed, had breakfast, then set out to become cowboys. Climbing onto her mother’s lap, Sydney went online and they found the perfect costume they could buy as well as copy today out of construction paper and fabric.

“Wait, mommy,” the little hand landed over hers on the mouse before she could click purchase. “What’s tomorrow?”

Sydney was always surprised by her daughter, and today was no different. “What do you mean?”

Scoffing and tossing her brown hair over her shoulder as if she was a teen and not a toddler, “mommy, we can’t be cowboys forever. Tomorrow’s not a today; it’s a tomorrow.”

Hours later, Vaughn entered the house to strange music playing over the in-wall speakers, a frown crinkling his face as he moved through the hallway into the open area between the kitchen and the living room. 

_ 'Is that...honky-tonk?'  _

A wide section of butcher paper was taped to the side of the center island in the kitchen entry and read  **SALOON** in big blocky letters. Intricate swirls and colors inside the letters and around the edges was evidence of his girls working together on a project that had probably kept them busy all day. Looking left he spotted more butcher paper draped over the ottoman, paper towel tubes sticking down the sides right and left with another out the center of one end topped with cut strings of yarn.

It and the stool across from it resembled horses, but he may have extrapolated that from the western music and the saloon sign at the entrance to the kitchen.

"Howdy pardner," a little voice called to him, and he looked ahead, his daughter blocking his path with finger guns stuck inside paper-folded holsters on her hips attached to a leather belt where a silver-painted piece of paper served as a buckle. He recognized the belt as one of his, though it was much too long and wrapped around her two and a half times before being held together with a piece of yarn.

Looking down he saw brown fabric glued to her socks at the shin and hanging down over her feet into a triangle just past her toes, a good attempt at imitation boots without having a pair on hand. As his eyes trailed up he saw a brown matching fabric vest colored with pink puffy paint seams and about fifteen buttons of all shapes, sizes, and colors along both the left and right sides. Topping it all off was a half cardboard-half construction paper cowboy hat, her hair hanging in two pigtails over her shoulders beneath the brim and behind her ears.

“Howdy, little lady.” He adopted a western drawl and tipped an imaginary hat in her direction before setting his briefcase against the wall to his left.

She nodded, her brow shaded beneath the stiff cardboard oval brim. “No daddies ayowed at dis sayoon.”

The fact that she still had problems with the L’s in her sentences was his current favorite thing, and he refused to correct her, as did his wife. He wanted to laugh but knew he couldn’t. The glare of her green eyes and the hard, serious lines of her mouth were offset by the rounded baby cheeks that she was starting to outgrow, and he felt a pang in his heart that his little girl was growing up far too fast for his liking. So he acted; setting his shoulders and straightening his stance, he met her gaze with confidence as he took off the blazer and dropped it over his briefcase. 

His holster was still around his shoulders though the weapon was locked in the safe in the garage, routine after coming home from the office, but he pulled it tight and hovered his hand over the empty leather pocket anyway.

“I don’t mean no trouble,” he offered.

“Okay!” The single word was so bright and bubbly and the air of intimidating seriousness disappeared so quickly he was caught off guard as she hopped forward in a strange running skip jump and vaulted into his arms. 

“I see you've been having fun today,” he said, moving into the kitchen and finding Sydney grinning against the counter wearing a similar constructed hat and vest with paper holsters at her hips over her jeans.

“We went to the yiberry and read all 'bout cowboys! Yook at...uh...what’s dat word, mommy?” Isabelle climbed down and rushed into the living room to jump on top of the ottoman to grab the yarn that served as reins.

“Stables.”

“Dees are da stables, daddy. You can ride dat one,” she pointed to the other chair before rocking back and forth pretending to take off through fields of grass.

“Good day?” Sydney asked, casting the hat to the counter as he walked up and leaned in to press his lips to hers.

“No, daddy, you have to pay for kisses in the sayoon” their daughter commanded.

Sydney winced, “I may have accidentally taught her about brothels when saying that you had to pay for  _ everything _ at a saloon,” she whispered, Michael laughing.

“You’re the teacher,” he conceded.

**...**

Sydney sat on the couch with a book in her lap as Vaughn read through files at the table. He sighed, standing with a stretch, and stepped into the kitchen to open the fridge.

"Drink?" He didn't get a response and looked up, his wife staring out the veranda door, closed tight in the evenings to ward off the cold winter air off of the ocean. "Syd?"

Snapping out of her thought she smiled apologetically. "Sorry. What’s up?"

"Everything okay?"

She nodded with a bright smile. "Yeah." 

"Water?"

She shook her head.

"Wine?"

She shook it again and his eyes narrowed. "That makes three," he said and leaned against the counter with a frown wrinkling his forehead.

Her frown matched, though it was borne of confusion. "Three what?"

"Three nights in a row that you've said no to a glass of wine."

A grin tilted her lips, but she just shrugged. "So? I hate chardonnay and it's the only bottle that’s open right now."

His suspicious glare intensified. "You love wine, though. We could open something else," he suggested, though his suspicion was piqued.

Sydney laughed, the book set aside despite the fact she hadn't really been reading it anyway. "You make me sound like an alcoholic."

"You're hiding something."

Sydney rolled her eyes and turned sideways on the couch, her arm slung over the back. "Fine. I'll have some wine."

His squint narrowed into a glare, so he decided to call her bluff. "The rosé?"

Her response was a swirling gesture with her hand that implied agreement, and he held her stare while walking slowly over to the stocked wine rack.

Grabbing the bottle, his fingers wrapped around the neck, he lifted his eyebrows prompting an eye roll accompanied by an overly dramatic sigh.

Pulling the bottle from the rack it lifted far too easily, and he was startled by the sudden rattle against the glass. Holding it up, the hanging lights above that section of counter shining through the tint, and he saw that there was something solid inside the liquidless bottle.

Looking back and holding it up as if demanding some kind of answer, Sydney was now perched on her knees with her arms propped up on the back, head on her palm with a small smile on her face.

"So you were hiding something," he commented, Sydney shrugging.

"You caught me...eventually. After a big hint."

Popping the cork, he tipped the bottle and shook it until the jingling item finally angled the right way down the neck and fell to the counter with a plastic clatter.

"It took three days for you to suggest the rosé," she said quietly.

"I may have forgotten that you didn't like chardonnay."

Sydney chuckled as he picked up the little plastic stick and tried to tilt it under the light to see what it was. "I'll be offended later."

Michael grunted and squinted as he saw the small window trying to decipher what he was reading. Two faint blue lines caught his attention.

"Holy shit, are you serious?" His excitement was sudden and joyous, Sydney grinning.

"Yeah."

"It's only been a little over a month, though." Tossing it to the counter he moved to the couch.

"Apparently we're dangerously reproductive," she giggled lightly as he leaned down to cup her cheek and catch her lips in a kiss. Pulling his shoulders with her hands she all but yanked him over the back of the couch as he settled above her.

“You could have just told me. How long have you known?”

Sydney laughed. “I’ve known for four days, but it wasn’t as much fun to just tell you, I wanted to surprise you.”

Michael huffed as he slid down until his head was lined up with her currently flat stomach. Undoing the bottom buttons of her shirt to reveal her skin, he pressed light kisses below her navel as her hand ran through his hair and massaged his scalp.

“You’re only a month or so behind Francie,” he grinned, Sydney realizing with a smile that she and her best friend would be pregnant at the same time. 

“Isabelle is going to be so excited,” she whispered, Michael blowing a quiet chuckle across her skin as his hand flattened against her stomach, his chin propping just behind his fingers. “It’s been this or a puppy for a solid month.”

“Hopefully she wanted a sibling more than a puppy.”

**…**

"I see the prize; over" the voice crackled over the speaker, Jack on his stomach as he crawled through the tight space.

"Copy that, Phoenix. Can you reach it?"

Her hand reached, the fingers barely able to touch the edge of the pedestal from her position. “It’s too high; over.”

Grunting and stopping, his hand bringing the walkie talkie back up to his mouth. “Can you find a chair to stand on?”

Her brown eyes scanned the room and spotted an ottoman sitting in front of a plush couch. “Yes; over.”

From his position, he could hear the scraping over the hard-wood floor. His elbows dragged his body across the floor as he moved toward the end of the bend ahead, the low ceiling of the shaft and the tight walls not giving him much room to bear-crawl, though he was thankful it was wood and not carpet.

A mechanical noise whirred behind him making him look back toward the light at the end of the proverbial tunnel, and he knew the access door adjacent to the next room was being accessed. "We don't have a lot of time, Phoenix. Can you get the prize?"

Climbing up onto the sturdy wooden seat, the pedestal before her stood tall as the glass-encased book was finally within her reach. Tucking a loose lock of brown hair behind her ear, she reached into her pocket and pulled out the silver key. With trembling fingers she reached toward the lock, the beeping of the security panel making her heart pound in her ears.

The lock clicked, the glass door swung open, and she wrapped her fingers around the hard-bound book making sure to be careful as she slid it into the messenger’s back slung over her shoulder. Turning, she ran down the hallway in the opposite direction as fast as her legs could carry her.

“Freeze, thief,” a voice called out stopping her in her tracks. She turned slowly with her hands up in the air. 

She peeked to the left and spotted the open end of the shaft, the man’s eyes narrowing. “You’ll never make it,” he challenged in a low voice.

Deciding to go for it, she dove for the entrance and landed with a thud on her stomach. As she began to shimmy inside, hands grabbed and pulled her back before vaulting her over a shoulder, fingers tickling her ribs forcing peals of laughter from her lips.

Her mother's voice echoed in the hallway, "hey, I thought we weren't doing any more heists after the lamp last week."

The grandfather finished his crawl from the cardboard tunnel with a winded chuckle, sitting up and dusting off his dress pants and the front of his button-up shirt. Wrapping his arms around his knees he met his daughter’s folded arms, her face a mask of jovial sternness. 

“Papa showed me Indiana Jones!” Set back to the floor by her father, the little girl beaming, and Vaughn noticed a long flowing braided piece of fabric through the loop on her side of the flower-patterned jeans and wondered quickly what had been used to create the makeshift bullwhip. “He told me stories about you going all around the world to find hiding prizes!”

“Thanks, dad,” Sydney laughed as they moved into the kitchen and dropped the plastic bags onto the marble countertops. 

The elder Bristow’s response was to shrug and laugh. “Free babysitting has to come with  _ some  _ price, sweetheart.”

Vaughn helped his father in law off the floor, the grey-haired grandpa dusting off his button-up shirt tucked into grey dress pants. Jack Bristow didn’t seem to own anything other than dress suits and button-up shirts from what either of them had seen.

“Did you buy me a present, daddy?”

Pretending, Michael set his finger to his chin. “Did we buy you a present? Is it your birthday?”

“Not for three more months.” Following closely behind her father, she tried to peek at the bags on the counter, but they were just too high.

“What was the heist prize this time, you two?”

Granddaughter and grandfather shared matching guilty looks, the taller looking down at the sheepish gaze of the shorter, and the little girl pulled the large messenger bag off of her shoulder and handed it to her mother. Inside, Sydney found bubble wrap padding the bottom, back, and front, and a soft smile hit her face as she extracted the first edition  _ Alice in Wonderland _ from the carefully packaged bag.

“An excellent prize,” she said, Isabelle relaxing. “Maybe next time we don’t heist the really expensive, one-of-a-kind book, huh?” The youngster agreed with a nod. “Let’s put it back.”

Hefting the girl to her hip they made their way together to the pedestal, the glass door open with the silver key still in the lock. Isabelle set the book in on the stand with careful hands, and Sydney closed the door, the lock clicking with a turn of the key. Dropping it back into the vase on a shelf above, she let her daughter scamper back to the kitchen.

“Daddy,  _ did _ you get me a present?”

“You know, I just can’t remember,” he said and she crossed her arms over her chest giving her best Bristow-esque glower topped by a Vaughn emerald glare.

“That’s it!” Stomping her little foot, she set one hand akimbo as the other pointed up at her father. “No...more... _ games _ . I have an all tomato!”

The adults stopped dead, each looking back and forth in hopes that one of the others would be able to decipher the child’s nonsensical order.

“An all tomato?” It was Sydney that clarified.

“You promised! I have an all tomato. That means you  _ have  _ to give me something!”

The parents grinned as their daughter played right into their surprise, albeit in a hilarious and unique way that only Isabelle Vaughn could manage. Michael spotted the still unsure look on Jack’s face and mouthed,  _ ‘ultimatum’ _ .

“Sweetheart, I’m sure there’s something for you in one of these bags.” 

Sydney turned surprised eyes on her father. The tone in his voice and the softness on his face was so unlike the Jack Bristow she’d once known, and the fact that he would do anything for his granddaughter was evident.

“Tell papa the two things you’ve been begging for,” the mother said nonchalantly, moving into the kitchen and pouring herself a glass of water.

“A baby or a puppy. You said! You said I could have one when I got older!”

“One of those things is in one of these bags,” Michael said softly yet confidently, and Isabelle and Jack both froze.

It was an added bonus that her father was also present for the announcement, and Sydney grabbed a small card from her purse as Vaughn lifted a square shape hidden beneath plastic and moved to the kitchen table. Isabelle scampered to follow, Jack watching with curious steel-blue eyes until Sydney held the card for him to take.

“You get a present too,” she smiled. “Thanks for babysitting.”

“Daddy,” the little whine indicated displeasure as well as a looming nap. “Not this kind of baby! I want a  _ real _ baby!”

In the box was a new doll, which any child would be delighted to receive, but she glared at her father with a pout.

“This is for practice. In a few months, we'll have a real baby.”

Confusion furrowed Jack’s brow as he opened the card, his eyes flicking down before opening wide at the sonogram in his hand. He had no clue how to read it, much like he hadn’t for their first child, but he heard Sydney’s chuckle and met her smile with surprise.

“There’s not much to see other than a grey blob at seven weeks, but they took the picture anyway. We’ll know more soon.”

“Congratulations, sweetheart,” Jack said sweetly and pressed a kiss to her cheek.

"What are you meaning?" Isabelle set both of her hands to her father's cheeks and held his face directly in front of hers. "Don't pretend me, daddy. No pretends."

Michael matched her stance, his own hand framing her small face as his thumbs rubbed away the worry on her brow.

"This is practice for the real baby."

“When do we get the real baby? Why so many monfs away? Can you show me?” She pulled away and moved to the family calendar hanging on a low hook. “Can you show me when?”

Sydney grabbed the marker from the counter and crouched down. It was early January, so she flipped to the end of the year. “Sometime near the end of summer.”

“How many monfs?”

“About eight months.”

Isabelle fired off an eye roll and a dramatic sigh, the back of her hand hitting her forehead as if she were to faint, and she flopped down to her bottom in a heap on the floor.

“Why can’t we have one now?”

Sydney laughed and stood, moving back into the kitchen to put away groceries and begin to prepare for dinner. “We talked about it, bean. The baby has to grow. Remember?”

“I don’t yike waiting,” she grumped, her small fingers playing with a frayed string at the bottom of her jeans.

“Tell you what,” Sydney said from inside the fridge. “We’ll go to the bookstore tomorrow and get a planner, and you can help me put all the steps onto the calendar.”

Vaughn patted Jack on the shoulder and gestured to the fridge. “No, no, I’ll get out of your hair.”

“You might as well stay for dinner, dad. You’re already here,” Sydney offered, though she’d seen the tiredness in her father’s eyes after nearly a full day with his granddaughter and knew exactly how he felt.

“Pweeze stay, papa! Pweeze!” Hopping up from her spot sulking on the floor, she careened into the elder’s knees with a fierce hug. The grandfather let out a soft sigh, agreeing after hefting her up to his hip.

The group had dinner inside before heading out to sit around the fire pit, several of the chaise lounge and outdoor patio chairs moved close. Though there was a chill in the air, but a breezeless night was rare and they'd all been cooped up enough to slip on warm jackets and brave the temps. Despite a cloudless sky, night came all too soon and Isabelle’s bedtime was marked by the last vestiges of light releasing their hold on the horizon. At the moment, the little girl was sound asleep across Jack’s chest as he reclined on a chair with a smile on his face. His feet were propped and crossed at the end of the chaise, and all attempts by both parents to put the little one to bed were thwarted by Jack’s whisper.

“She’s not going to fit here forever, she’s fine.” 

The moon was shining somewhere out of sight and the sound of the waves washing back and forth lulled all of them into silence. Approaching half past nine, Isabelle woke and sat up from her spot on her grandfather's lap in a groggy haze.

"I need to go to bed," she said decidedly and climbed down. With soft and drowsy steps she walked to her father’s side and reached for him, Michael setting down his glass of wine and getting up, her little hand wrapping around his fingers and leading him back toward the house. 

She paused at the doorway, huffing as if frustrated by a sudden thought or realization. Letting go of Vaughn’s hand she slowly padded back to Jack’s side and leaned up to press a kiss to his cheek and wrap her little arms around him as far as they would go.

“I hope I see you for breffest tomorrow, papa,” she whispered in his ear before accepting a kiss to the forehead. Doing the same with her mother, she reclaimed Michael’s hand and lead him into the house to be tucked in for the night.

“Do you want one of us to drive you back? It’s getting pretty late and I know she wore you out,” Sydney suggested quietly, surprised when her father folded his hands over his stomach as a relaxed sigh left his lips.

“I might stay if that’s alright.”

In almost five years he’d never stayed, and Sydney’s heart fluttered at the chance of spending more than a few hours a week with him, especially without Isabelle demanding his attention. Once a week he stopped by for lunch or to help watch the little girl after preschool if Deloreme or Francie weren’t available, and she was finally seeing a side of her father that she could remember only if she thought hard enough.

His blue eyes looked over at his daughter and the soft, goofy look on her faraway face. “Sydney? Is it alright if I stay?”

This snapped her free of her thoughts. “Of course, dad. Yeah. Of...of course.”

The pair lapsed back into silence, Jack’s eyes staring up at the star-filled sky. Sydney, however, kept sneaking glances at her father. This territory wasn’t familiar, despite the fact that they’d gotten closer than any other time in her life these last few years. He was completely relaxed and looked ten years younger, though she wasn’t sure if that was just the low glow of the fire that kept them warm from a few feet away.

Jack could feel the unsurety of her energy and from the corner of his periphery could see her stealing glances every few moments.

“When Danny called me to ask for my blessing to marry you,” he started quietly, “there’s something that I never admitted...to either of you.”

He left a pause for her to confirm, but when she didn’t, he continued.

“I desperately wanted ‘normal’ for you, Sydney, and I knew he was your best chance at having a normal life. I’d been working for months on getting you out from under the thumb of the Alliance, and when Danny called, I knew it was your chance. Marrying him, having kids,” he paused again, “you couldn’t be a field agent and do that at the same time.”

“You did,” she countered in a quiet whisper, and his momentum was stalled.

Turning and fixing gentle blue eyes on her nervous face, he could see emotions flickering with the ebb and flow of the flames. “You were never my liability, Sydney. I...when I said that I was angry. You’ve always been that bright light that kept me on the right path, and I never thanked you for that. Staying as a field agent when you were young was the biggest mistake I’ve ever made, sweetheart.”

“Dad-” her voice was watery, the bubble catching in the back giving Jack the opportunity to keep going.

He interrupted by sitting up, his elbows resting on his knees keeping his stance an open reflection of his words. Pointing toward the house, “that little girl is  _ perfect _ , Sydney. She’s my second chance.”

“At what?”

She spotted the quiver of his chin and the dancing flames reflected in the shining tears pooling in his eyes. “To do things  _ right _ . To be... _ good _ .”

Jack’s eyes followed as Sydney not only sat up but stood, her movements shy and wary, uncommon for her, and her wringing fingers belied her nervousness as she parked herself next to him. The pair sat awkwardly for a moment, Jack unsure what to do about her sudden closeness and Sydney not really understanding what drove her to move to his side in the first place.

“I missed so much, Sydney. Almost every birthday, recital, school event. I’m not going to do that with her.” His words had the hard edge she was accustomed to, though the content of those words was anything but hard. 

“What...what if I want to be the second chance?”

The ask froze Jack to his core and a moment of panic settled into his stomach twisting it into a knot.

“Before I understood, I didn’t miss you. I didn’t remember missing you, I mean. I remember the games of hide and seek, the presents wrapped with pink bows, the compliments you gave me at three in the morning when I decided that I needed to practice tap dancing with the new shoes you’d gotten me for Christmas, and I remember going on hikes in the hills. You’d crouch down at every single rock, every bug, and everything I found interesting, you did too.”

“Sydney-” it was her turn to cut him off.

“You invented a monster spray and had the guys at the office make an official label for the bottle to keep me from being scared at night from the monsters I was  _ sure _ were in my closet.  _ ‘Official C.I.A.-Grade Monster Spray’ _ . You took me to the office and let me spend meetings spinning in your chair and drawing on your reports.”

“Sydney-”

“ _ You _ forgot, dad, I didn’t. We drifted apart because both of us made that choice, even a little accidentally. I maybe have forgotten that I needed you, and you assumed that I didn't.” Sydney wiped at the tears on her cheeks, her other hand pointing toward the warm house, “Isabelle has an amazing dad already, so I need you to be her amazing grandfather. She can’t be your second chance.”

“Maybe I...shouldn’t stay tonight,” he wavered, but her laugh and the fact that she’d pulled his hand between hers across her lap lessened his worry.

“You don’t have to try so hard. Life happened, dad. A  _ lot _ of life happened. But look where we are,” she ordered and pointed ahead to the quiet solitude of the secluded beach.

Moonlight streamed from somewhere behind the house, the long shadows of the angled roof and the tall palms were slowly creeping across the sand and moving over the shells lying in the surf. The sky contained more stars than he knew existed and the black expanse of the sea stretched into the faintest sliver of remaining sunset at the farthest point his eyes could see. He heaved a sigh as contentment flooded in and replaced despair in his chest.

“I have the normal that you wanted me to have. Sure, not the way either of us planned, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that Bristow’s shouldn’t make plans.”

That made him laugh, a sniffle hiding behind the wipe of an escaping tear.

“What if I’m still bad at it, sweetheart?”

Sydney leaned into him and dropped her head onto his shoulder, her fingers still clutching his hand between hers over her knees. “You were never bad at it, daddy, you were just...unconventional.”

Silence save for the lazy in and out of the tide left him to ponder the gross understatement she’d tossed into the air. “You’re also making breakfast in the morning,” she grinned and pressed a kiss to his cheek. Untangling their hands and rising with a stretch and a sigh, “I’ll go get the guest room ready if you’ll put out the fire.”

Jack promised and watched her walk into the brightly lit home. Finding himself lying back against the chaise and pondering the normality of his daughter’s life, he realized that she’d been settled into this normal for years and he was the one stuck in the past. He was still thinking of her as the bright new SD-6 field agent, the experienced and amazing field agent eight years later when they started working together, the girl bloodied in the chair, and the hopeful worrier locked in a basement. 

None of the normal surrounding him was new to her despite the fact that it felt new to him every time he made the drive, every time he saw the house, and every time he played with his granddaughter.

Sydney had outgrown being the new girl in the office, the experienced girl excelling at everything she set her mind to, the broken girl in the chair, and the nervous girl in the basement. Hell...she wasn't a girl and hadn't been for a long time. She was almost thirty-five with a five-year-old daughter and another baby on the way.

Why had it taken so long for him to realize that she wasn't a little girl any longer?

The moon made the trek across the sky ending up above him and the fire died down to a smoldering crackle of blackened wood lined with streaks of molten red and orange, but still he lay on the chaise to stare at the slowly turning sky. His thought made him grin as he recalled a moment with his little girl many years ago.

_ “Papa?” _

_ “Yes, princess?” _

_ “Why does the sky turn?” _

_ Jack was caught off guard by the question as he lay on his back in the soft grass of the yard with his five-year-old as they stared up at the stars. “What do you mean?” _

_ “The stars are in different spots and if you watch it for a long, long time, the sky turns the stars away.” She pointed with a little finger, the long sleeve of her pink nightgown clutched in the folded fingers against her palm. If Laura caught them out here at nearly two in the morning she’d have a heart attack, but he couldn’t say no when she’d found him in his office and asked if he’d watch the stars with her in that tiny, heart-piercing voice. _

_ “The Earth turns, princess, not the sky.” _

_ Glancing, he could see the wheels grinding behind her bright and curious brown eyes.  _

_ “Papa?” _

_ “Yes, princess.” _

_ “Why does the Erff turn?” _

A jingle pulled his focus to his right, a masculine hand holding a tumbler of amber liquid and ice cubes as a flash of moonlight danced off of the golden wedding band. Accepting it with a smile he heard his son-in-law settle in Sydney’s abandoned chaise, a cling of ice against glass and an airy sip indicating that he was enjoying his own nightcap.

“Thanks, son,” he said quietly. “Sorry I didn’t come in,” he started, but Vaughn waved him off.

“I get lost out here too,” he admitted.

“Sydney asleep?”

“Yep. Both girls are out cold.”

Occasional slips broke the quiet, Jack’s chuckle pulling Michael’s attention. “I won’t find anything floating in here, will I?” Gesturing to the half-empty glass with a knowing grin.

The younger man’s response was a hearty laugh. “You’ll have to drink to find out.”

Jack shrugged and took another sip, his left arm sliding back behind his head. “It’s beautiful out here.”

“You’ll have to stay more often,” Michael started, leaving the sentence off and hoping the elder would take his hint to confess.

“Now that I’ve put in for retirement, you mean?”

Vaughn grinned. “Did you tell her?”

“Not yet. I don’t know how to quit, son. How...how did you quit?”

“I didn’t,” came the reminder.

Jack sat up. “But you would have?”

“If she’d asked? Yes.”

“You quit being a field agent though.”

Michael thought for a moment. “It was easy to walk away from the hardest parts of that job. The analysis borders on boring, but in almost five years I can count on one hand the number of times I've had to get on a plane and leave them behind. Do you know how easy the flight is to Virginia and back?”

The elder chuckled, “yes, I do.”

“Have them keep you on retainer for analysis. You’ll go less crazy. I’ve had plenty to distract me, Jack, and I’ll never look back, but I worry about you dropping the job that’s demanded so much of your energy for so long.  _ My _ family can’t be your new job.” It seemed harsh, and though Michael intended for it to be startling, he wasn’t prepared for the hurt look that passed the grandfather’s face.

Sitting up, the younger softened his tone. “We want you around. Sydney has been reconnecting with you and Izzy loves you more than you’ll ever know. You are  _ always _ welcome here, but we can’t become your new project. We can’t be a C.I.A. replacement, dad.”

This marked the third of three times Michael had surprised Jack with the title, and the senior nodded. “I do know that. I do,” he whispered. “Analysis, eh?”

“Chess in the park...anything. You’ll feel lost the first month or so, but things will settle into place.” Finishing off the drink, Michael stood. “The guest room is yours whenever you're here.”

**…**


	34. Epilogue Part 5: Jack of All Trades

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [](https://www.flickr.com/photos/190971129@N06/50865702201/in/dateposted/)  
> 

**Part 34: Jack of all Trades**

_ “I can just have Will go, Syd.” The sound of Vaughn’s voice was bordering on a whine. _

_ “Why? It’s just two days,” she countered, her finger tracing the wooden seam of the dining table edge as the teapot brewed on the counter.  _

_ Michael crossed his arms over his chest as his frown deepened, his wife surprised that was even a possibility. “Your morning sickness is kicking your ass right now, Syd.” _

_ “Ppft,” she brushed off. “I’m fine.” The green tint of her cheeks and the fact that it was nearing two in the morning piled onto the fact that she’d been up three times since eleven already. All of that tarnished the confidence of her assurance. “Just because I’m not doing this alone right now doesn’t mean that I can’t.” _

Leaning her forehead against the seat of the toilet after a bout of retching, Sydney regretted convincing him so hard that she would be fine. Truthfully, she  _ was _ fine, just missing the comfort of him kneeling behind her with a hand holding her hair back and the other pressing a cool cloth to her forehead as she purged what remained of her previous meal, the water she’d been forcing down, and the tea that she’d hoped would have made this process a lot easier.

“Mommy?”

Isabelle’s tiny voice came from the entrance to the bathroom, Sydney peering up to see the little girl with rumpled pajamas and sleep lingering in her otherwise bright green eyes.

“Hey bean, did I wake you up?”

“I’ll help,” she said decidedly and grabbed the little stool from the corner of the big bathroom. 

Sitting back on her heels and stretching her neck, Sydney felt the pinch of the hair tie on her scalp from where she’d yanked the tresses into place on her bolt to the bathroom. Her daughter turned on the sink and grabbed a hand towel from the nearby rack, soaking it thoroughly, and then carrying the sopping mess over to her mother.

“You sick, mommy?” Setting a tiny hand to Sydney’s forehead to check for a temperature made the pale woman laugh and take the towel, pulling the girl into a hug. Wringing the excess water dripping from the soaked terry cloth into the toilet before flushing, they scooted back against the wall to perch on the pillow Vaughn had placed a week ago when the bouts had started.

“Thank you, sweetie, I feel better already. Remember when we planned on the calendar and I said there would be a few weeks where I was sick to my stomach? That’s where we’re at.”

She nodded and threw an arm around Sydney’s middle, her little hand patting just above the belly button. “Growing a baby is hard. We shoulda bought one."

The mother laughed, another bout of queasiness hitting but ebbing. “It doesn’t work that way, sweetie, but yeah, it’s hard sometimes.”

“Werf it?”

Looking down at the bright green eyes, Sydney nodded. “Totally worth it. Let’s go make some tea.” 

Isabelle hopped up and held out her hands intending to help her mother up, Sydney accepting and pretending as much as her revolting stomach and dizzy brain would allow that she was having a hard time and that her daughter’s hand was just what was needed.

“Can I have hot chocolate?” 

“Sure,” the mother conceded, knowing that if she made the concoction with warm milk the little girl would be out like a light for the rest of the night.

“Wiff whip cream?”

Sydney grinned, “you can’t really have hot chocolate without whipped cream.”

Dropping her hand and skipping ahead, the little girl grabbed another stool and set it under the lightswitch, sliding the dimmer to low after blinding them both momentarily with a flick of her finger. Water in the electric kettle churned and Sydney set a cup of milk on the stovetop for the hot chocolate, the little girl climbing up at the table and flipping through the planner she and her mother had put together.

“Mommy? What number are we on?”

Sydney smiled and moved to her side. “Ten weeks.”

Flipping the page, Izzy’s finger pointed to the pages a couple of weeks earlier. “Eight is a bean!”

“That’s how you got your nickname. The first time we saw you in the picture you were the size of a little bean.” 

Isabelle paused and looked back and forth from the picture in the planner to her mother’s still flat stomach. “Is...will the new baby’s pretend name be bean? What will you call me?”

Calming her worry by pressing a kiss to the top of her head as the kettle hissed, Sydney promised that wasn’t the case. “We’ll give the new baby a different one.”

“How big is it right now?”

“Keep flipping until you see the ten.”

Opening the box of peppermint tea the queasy mother took a deep breath inside the box and let the soothing smell invade her senses in the hope that it would quell her stomach. Thankful that tomorrow was Saturday, her eyes spotted 12:45 on the stove and she realized that tomorrow was already today.

“A peanut or a strawberry,” the little girl called out. “Strawberry is a bad pretend name.”

“Peanut isn’t too bad,” Sydney responded as she stirred the cocoa mix into the boiling milk. Tossing in a couple of ice cubes and grabbing the spray bottle of whipped cream from the fridge, she topped it off with a puff of the tasty foam and carried both mugs to the table.

“We should ask the baby.”

“If you could have picked your name, what would it be?”

Holding the small mug with both hands and sticking her finger into the cream with a dimpled smile, the wheels turned behind her eyes. “Princess Bean.”

Sydney laughed and sipped at her tea.

“Mommy?”

“Yes, Princess Bean?”

Reaching out with a gentle hand she traced the faint scar on the back of Sydney’s thumb that continued around to her wrist before heading up to her elbow. “How did you get this owie?”

Behind the question was only innocence, but Sydney still felt the twinge in her muscles that came with any mention of that past. It had lessened over the years, and if she was the one to bring it up there was barely a reaction. If she was surprised by the inquiry, however, it set off either her stomach or her nerves. Her stomach was already a turbulent mess, so Sydney was thankful that it was the nerves that pinched for a moment.

“I broke my arm before you were born. Doctors had to fix it,” she lied. There would come a day that she and Vaughn would have to sit their daughter down and explain her past, but today was not that day. 

“Did it hurt?” The little finger kept tracing the line, the girl leaning on her stomach over the table as she traced the scar, poking softly when a stitch line popped up every inch or so.

“It sure did.”

“Did you falled?”

Sydney smiled softly. “Yep. Tell me, Izzy,” she changed the subject with a sip of her tea. “Do you want a brother or a sister?”

“Can I pick?”

Sydney chuckled. “Well no. It’s already either a boy or a girl, but it’s a fun game to guess. Maybe you’ll be right.”

“Can I have bofe?”

“Probably not, sweetie. You’ll have to guess just one.” The tea was starting to work on Sydney’s stomach, and as Isabelle drank the warm beverage the mother could see sleep tugging at the little girl as she sat back into the chair with her little feet alternating between hanging off of and propping on the seat.

The little girl turned the tables. “Do you want a brother or a sister?”

“I think a boy would be fun,” she answered. “Taking care of a baby brother might be nice, don’t you think?”

“If she’s a sister she can share all of my dresses and my dolls.” Isabelle looked confused for a moment. “Can a brother share my dolls?”

“If he wants to,” Sydney answered and propped her head on her hand as the two sat at the table surrounded by the quiet of night.

“Brady at class says dat boy toys can’t be girl toys.”

Sydney scoffed lightly, “a toy is a toy. If you have a brother and he wants to know how to play baby doll, I think he has a great big sister to teach him, don’t you?”

Isabelle nodded vigorously. “I’m real good at baby doll! What if we have a brother but they want to be a sister?”

Sydney was yet again surprised by her daughter’s curiosity. The way her mind worked at nearly five astounded them all, and when her father said that it reminded him of Sydney when she was younger, they had to wonder which of her traits Isabelle had inherited.

“Then they can be a sister.”

“Okay,” she said and finished her drink. “You feeling better mommy?”

Sydney nodded, surprised when it was the truth. “Yes, love. Thank you for helping me.”

“Tomorrow we can think a name for the baby. When daddy gets home, he can help. He’s a good helper.”

**…**

“Odd you still haven’t picked a name. You had Isabelle chosen before you were showing,” Jack mentioned, Sydney and Michael sharing a look and a grin. It was the first time it had come up all night, Vaughn having told everyone they weren’t sure about a name and would decide after the baby was born. Though he was almost two hours old and still hadn’t been donned with one yet, though no one seemed to mind at the moment. 

Isabelle, however, had been preparing for “baby Jack” for months, and as she hovered above the infant beside her grandfather’s leg with bright green eyes, she frowned and put a hand on her hip.

“We named him your name, papa.”

“What, sweetheart?” Jack looked confusedly down at the little girl, the infant in the crook of his arm squeaking and pulling his attention.

“This is baby Jack. I learned to spell it, wanna see?” Dropping to her tiny suitcase she pulled out a tattered notebook and flipped to the page where her grandfather could admire her practiced letters. 

In legible and clean letters at the top it said  _ Baby Jack _ , and below was Isabelle’s wobbly, yet readable, copy. The Grandfather’s eyes bounced up to the tired yet sweet smile on his daughter’s face, Michael’s looking the same when he shifted to the young man sitting on the small couch on the other side of the room.

“Jonathan William,” she said quietly. “Despite  _ that  _ one,” she grinned, pointing to Isabelle, “we kept it a secret.” The little girl was oblivious to the accusation as she lay on her stomach practicing more letters on the lined paper.

“It took a lot of bribes for Izzy not to spill the beans. She figured out blackmail far too easily.”

Steel-blue eyes looked down at the squinting light gaze of his grandson, the pink squished face and suckling mouth staring up at him from within the wrapped blanket.

“You...didn’t have to do that,” Jack said as a ball of emotion clogged his throat.

“It was daddy’s idea,” the tiny brunette with green eyes said between poking out her tongue and biting her lower lip deep in thought over another copy of  _ Baby Jack _ in bright pink crayon. 

The adults laughed, “see why we’re so surprised?”

Sydney shifted with a wince. The birth hadn’t gone as smoothly as hoped. The infant turning just before Sydney’s water broke, and after failed attempts to right the wrong position, Sydney was rushed in for an emergency c-section. The process of trying to turn the baby as well as the impromptu surgery had left her painfully sore and extremely tired and uncomfortable, and though everyone wanted to stay for a chance to hold the new baby, all but the grandfather had gone home for the night.

Once the infant got fussy and demanded his evening meal, the elder Bristow stood and pressed a kiss to every forehead present, including Michael's. Settling the baby into Sydney’s arms, he said his goodbyes and left.

“This is so different than last time,” Michael noted, Sydney nodding as Isabelle moved to stand beside the bed.

“I kind of wish we could be second time parents the first time around. It would have made everything so much easier.” Unbuttoning the blouse the baby latched and made squeaking grunts as he drank.

“Can I see, mommy?” 

“Sure, bean, climb up with careful steps.” The medical bed was a bit too high, so Michael moved from his spot on the settee to lift his daughter and set her gently beside Sydney’s legs.

“No, daddy, don’t look!”

Forgetting himself for a moment, he quickly turned his head away before realizing that the reaction wasn’t warranted. Truthfully, some of his favorite moments as a new parent were spent watching his wife feed their little ones. 

“It’s a family thing, sweetie, it’s okay. Your daddy used to watch you eat all the time.”

“You made the cutest little piggy noises,” Michael said as he moved back and flopped down on the couch with a sigh, his hands folded behind his head. 

Isabelle looked indignant. “No I didn’t! I’m a princess! Princesses don’t make piggy noises!”

“You’re right,” Sydney agreed. “They were more like...cute little mousey squeaks.”

This made Isabelle cross her arms over her chest in a huff with a huge pout on her face beneath a hardened scowl that, by five, she’d more than perfected. Sydney reached out and cupped her daughter’s chin, “I loved your little squeaks. They were very lady-like.”

A few hours later, Isabelle was tucked against her mother’s side drooling into the pillow with one leg hanging off the bed as Sydney slept with her cheek against the top of the little girl’s head. Holding the sleeping newborn to his chest with his left hand sprawled across his back, Michael reached down to bring the girl’s foot back to the bed and under the blanket as a knock announced the arrival of the nurse checking in on the small family.

“Look at you. You’d hardly think that I had to teach you how to even pick one up,” she commented with a sweet smile, Vaughn chuckling as he finished tucking the blanket around his eldest with his free hand.

“I got the hang of it,” he grinned. “Do you need him for anything?”

“No, no, just checking in and making sure everything is alright in here.” She left with a smile as Michael placed the little one back into the portable bassinet before passing out on the couch with a light and scratchy blanket draped over his legs.

**…**

“No, no, no, Jack-Jack, you’ve gotta stay with me,” Vaughn ordered as he caught their three-year-old slinking his way down the hall toward the bedroom where Sydney had escaped earlier.

As predicted, the boy folded as his bones seemed to turn into mush unable to hold up his weight. Michael’s grip swung the limp toddler into his arms before carrying him back to the living room.

“Mommy needs me,” he whined with a sob, a dead giveaway that the boy was getting sleepy. 

Isabelle jumped in from her spot coloring at the kitchen table, “brother, mommy needs to get lots of sleeps before the first day of school.”

The tears didn’t last very long, the father distracting the boy with a plastic tray and the container of play dough. Each time Jack began to nod off, the clock showing that it was now two hours past his bedtime, Michael would pat him on the back or shoulder just enough to jar him from dozing and he would keep squishing the now brown-colored mixture between his fingers.

At nearly ten-forty-five, he couldn’t take it any longer. Despite the pat on the back, Jack nodded off with his chin lolling against his chest and his hands dropping pieces of dough on the floor and chair to both sides of the booster seat. 

“Daddy, can I watch cartoons?” Isabelle asked her question as she continued to color, assuming the answer would be  _ ‘it’s too late’ _ .

Michael nodded, scooping his son up and tucking him against his chest. “If you clean up the play dough, you can watch whatever movie you want.”

The suspicious squint she sent his way put a grin on his face. She hadn’t moved from her spot drawing. In fact, her hand was still poised with the colored pencil over the artwork and her head was still lowered to get a better angle at whatever she needed to be bright blue, but her eyes shifted to look his way. The wheels of her mind were spinning and thinking. She must have determined that the bargain was fair, and slipping the blue pencil back into the box with the rest, she closed the lid on the tub before hopping off the chair and moving to where her brother had made a mess of the toddler-safe clay.

Jack didn’t make a sound as Michael checked the pull-up diaper, finding it dry, and tucked the boy into the small, racecar-shaped bed. Lifting the attachable rail so their toss-and-turner wouldn’t end up on the floor, he placed a gentle kiss to the warm forehead, brushed the blond flyaway locks aside, flicked on the night light, and made his way from the room closing the door in his wake.

Isabelle had cleaned well enough and was looking through movies on the shelf when the father flopped down on the couch.

“Tangled is already in the DVD player,” he said flippantly. It was her favorite movie and had been for a year, but her glare and the tiny fists set to her hips made him raise his hands in defense and gesture for her to continue her search.

As she looked at the names on the shelf, “daddy, why do you keep us up late when mommy has to go to school the next day?”

_ ‘Crap...she’s figuring it out. Do I be honest? No. Do I lie? No?’ _

“When you two wake up in the morning, you use a lot of her energy. The first day of school is tough for her, so if I keep you guys up late at night, you sleep in, and then mommy can go to school before you’re awake. It helps her focus on her day to not worry if you’re happy that morning.”

Half-truths were his bread and butter, and at eight-years-old, Isabelle still thought of them as acceptable answers.

“So...the night before the first day of school,” she said slowly as if her brain was working through a logic puzzle, “I get to stay up as late as I want.”

“No,” her father countered. “The night before your _ mom’s _ first day of school, assuming it’s not the same as  _ your  _ first day of school, you can stay up as late as you want.”

Her face made the look that would accompany a huff, though no sound reached his ear. “So...the night before the first day of school for mommy,” she began again, Michael’s eyes squinting with skepticism, “I can do whatever I want?”

He crossed his arms over his chest. “What is it you want to do?”

“What if I want to watch the same movie  _ three times _ ?”

“Sure.”

Her eyes widened in surprise. “What if I want to go play in the sand outside?”

“Sure.”

“What if I...want to make a new costume?”

“Not a problem.”

“What if…” she paused, her eyes darting about as her brain nearly exploded with the possibilities. “What if I want to play soccer with you?”

“As long as it’s outside, I’ll be your goalie.”

“What if…” she was running out of ideas as she never thought she would get this far. “What if I want to play dress-up?”

“As long as it doesn’t wake up your brother, go for it.”

“What if I want you to play dress-up with me?”

Michael laughed with a sigh, repeating, “as long as it doesn’t wake up your brother, sure.”

“What if I want to paint your nails?”

Michael’s answer was to lean forward and pull off his socks, wiggling his fingers and toes after propping them back onto the coffee table. 

“Can we watch Tangled while I paint your finger and toenails?”

What his daughter was failing to realize is that the morning of intimacy he shared with Sydney before she went to school that first day was something he would be willing to fight almost to the death to keep. It was sacred. Starting in a state of complete relaxation born from love and gentleness was one of the only ways she was able to cope with a day spent unboxing so much hate and hurt. With that in mind, it’s likely that he would have given in to almost anything Isabelle said. He was, however, thankful that their bright daughter had taken his agreement with surprise and hadn’t instead prepared a dozen activities related to learning the loudest musical instrument of which she could recall.

“Absolutely.”

Nearing one in the morning, Isabelle passed out with her cheek mashed against his arm, Vaughn rubbing his bleary eyes, mindful of the brand new layer of pink and purple polish on his nails, turning off the television mid-way through the second play of the movie. His feet shuffled and yawns blurred his vision until he tucked his head into his pillow, his body curling around his wife’s as he passed out.

**…**

“Morning, Mrs. Vaughn,” a familiar voice said from the doorway just before the rap of the knuckles hit the wood.

Looking up from her desk with a smile, Sydney greeted the assistant as he carried a gorgeously arranged bouquet of flowers in through the small office door.

“He never misses a Monday,” the young man grinned as he stepped into the room. Setting the vase on the desk, a spot cleared off for the weekly delivery, this being the first of the new semester.

“Thanks, Steven,” she said as he waved and left, and she took a moment to study the bright splash of color that seemed to lighten the room, and her heart, with just its presence. The deep vermillion of a smattering of roses lay between orange lily blooms, and betwixt those in almost an even pattern were purple Matthiola and lemon-colored mums.

The rectangle of folded paper was like the many she’d accumulated over the last eight years, and she recognized Michael’s handwriting as he quoted one of her favorite poets yet again.

_ ‘When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.’ _

Beneath that said,  _ ‘the joy was this morning, and more is waiting for you at home.’ _

With a wistful tilt of her lips she rose, reading it three or four times before reaching the bulletin board across the room. Pulling one of the pins from the corner she put the card in line with others, eight year’s worth, and stuck it in place. 

Another knock pulled her attention, a young woman in a University sweater and faded jeans with a tall young man behind her wearing very nearly the same, both offering smiles. “Sorry that we’re early, do you mind if we sit in the front?”

“The seats are wide open,” Sydney confirmed with a thankful nod, the bonafides provided and confirmed from the undercovers that attended every day of her classes. She figured that in eight years with absolutely nothing happening the C.I.A. would pull back on the security, but a contract was a contract, and any moment she spent outside of the house was accompanied by a tail, either agents or a vehicle.

Voices trickled in as students began to arrive for the start of class, and the conversations became a wafting steady noise throughout the lecture hall that leaked into the open door of the office attached to the presentation area. Gathering what she’d been working on at the desk into an organized pile, she left it behind and made her way out after taking a deep breath.

"Good afternoon," her voice echoed, the voices dimming almost immediately as another roster packed nearly every seat. Gone were the semesters with waiting lists and over-crowded aisles lined with fidgeting students standing when no seats were left. The hype was dying down, and in perhaps two or three more years, Sydney likely wouldn’t need to have the unique day-one question and answer session.

This first day of each semester was draining, but she'd learned that it was a necessity early in her tenure. Around half of the students that signed up for her classes were there for literature. The non-literature students usually dropped out, still able to say that they’d met Sydney Bristow, despite the fact that it had been almost nine years since she had used her maiden name.

An echoing rumble of return greetings washed over the room before silence reigned save for a cough from one side, and a rustle of notebook paper from the other.

"Though not everyone will stay, this is Poetry 111. My name is Sydney Vaughn, though I assume that all of you know me as Sydney Bristow. Yes," she paused with a grin to slide herself up and sit on the flat of the desk in the middle of the lowered center floor tier, " _ that _ Sydney Bristow."

Much like every other time, a low rumble of voices moved like a wave through the crowd. She watched side conversations pop up with tilted heads and cupped hands from her comfortable vantage point. This was the last class of the day for her, and she'd found that sitting on the desk and taking the load off her feet quickly became a priority. The dark blue button-up shirt bunched around her waist, and she loosened it before shifting to sit cross-legged with her hands folded together and resting lightly in the middle of her lap. Her stance was open and inviting, body language something she knew would help everyone with the upcoming conversation.

"Our first class is just this - me and you. This is the one chance you have to get any and all questions about me out of the way. For those here that  _ don’t _ know anything about me except what I look like sitting here in front of you, this will be a weird first day. Those that are all too familiar, now’s your chance. There are no stupid questions, but know that after four other classes today unique ones will probably be few and far between. I challenge you to surprise me."

Dead silence. That's what always greeted her the moment she told any group how the first class would proceed. One hand finally rose, slow and timid, and Sydney gestured as she tried to exude calm and confidence.

"You...did, um" the young girl stuttered and shifted her eyes back and forth. "Was it _ real _ ?"

Sydney nodded. "Very real. I know there are a lot of conspiracy theories out there about it being a hoax, and I don’t think there’s anyone out there more than me that wishes that were true." She paused for a moment before grinning to add, “maybe my husband.”

More hushed whispers bounced around and were promptly followed by silence, so she laid it all out in a reassuring voice. “This is the one chance any of you will have at this. Past today, I’ll shut you down.” she prompted. “If I can sit in that chair for six days, you can find the courage to ask what you want to know...but you have to ask.”

Several hands went up, a few more confident than others, and Sydney chose a young tan-skinned man with thick-rimmed glasses and a Sand Diego baseball cap. "Why let everyone that watched think you had died?"

"I did die. For nearly five minutes, I was dead. I had some amazing doctors that didn't give up on me, but what you saw was real, I didn't walk out of that room. Letting everyone think the bad guys had won afterward was an important step in keeping my friends, my family, and ultimately myself, safe."

An older woman with kind eyes and a greying head of hair spoke clearly. “What happened after? I’ve always wondered, and the CNN interview didn’t clear much of that up.”

Sydney nodded and looked down at her folded legs while she gathered her thoughts before meeting the eyes. “A tactical and medical team was actually out in the hall during the last ten minutes, but our director made the call to wait out the camera.”

“Why? Didn’t he know you could die?” A follow-up came out from the audience.

Sydney nodded sadly. “If the organization that put me in that chair saw me rescued, I wouldn’t be sitting here right now. I’d probably look like someone else, talk like someone else...be someone else. I get to be me because of that decision, but I know how hard it was to make. He told me how hard it was. He absolutely knew what that decision would mean, and that a rescue could quickly turn into a recovery. No one else could have made that call, but I’m thankful he did.”

"Do you know what happened to Flynn?" A voice came from the opposite side of the hall.

Sydney chuckled. "He gets to spend a very long time in a very small cell. Before he was transferred I went to see him, and the look on his face was pretty priceless."

The audience shared a collective relieved laugh. "Which part was the worst?" That question always came, no matter the class, and no matter the wording. Sometimes it would come early and sometimes it would come near the end, but it always came. The emergence of this question meant that they were getting comfortable, and that was always the preferred road for the rest of the class period.

“Truth?" She saw dozens of avid nods. "The fact that my friends and family were watching."

"And your husband?"

Sydney smiled. "At the time he wasn't my husband, but saying ‘secret boyfriend’ is really weird when you’re over thirty. Secret dating or not, knowing he was watching was very hard. It took me a long time to get over the fact that I didn’t have secrets any longer.” Looking around, the faces indicated that they didn’t entirely accept her answer, or she may have answered incorrectly.

Following up, she felt her right hand trace the scar on her left forearm, the students in the front row the only people in the room able to see anything. “In terms of the other stuff, the broken arm hurt the most, but it’s a close second to the day after that damn little knife."

Winces reminded her that the most brutal week of her life had been shared with the world.

A hand went up somewhere in the middle. "Was your dad really in the C.I.A. with you?"

Sydney nodded, "I retired right after I...came back to life,” a small chuckle wafted, “and he retired about three years ago. He was a double agent for the C.I.A. before I was, and circumstances being what they were, I couldn’t have asked for a better teammate. I don’t think I knew that at the time."

"Are you allowed to talk about those circumstances?" A deep voice from the right side asked.

She thought before responding, keeping in mind that some things were still classified. "The organization that recruited me had spent almost thirty years pretending to be the C.I.A.. Every question that was asked had an answer, and the Board of Directors were all ex-intelligence from various agencies around the globe. They were very good at lying, and I spent seven years working for them without knowing they were the bad guys."

A soft feminine tone from her left, “how did you not know?”

Sydney chuckled. “I still ask myself that from time to time. I don’t know how I didn’t see the truth, but I was blinded by my patriotism. I was  _ really good _ at my job, but when you get to see the inner workings that bare every truth...it’s rough learning that you were on the wrong side.”

"How did you find out?"

"They tried to kill me," she responded quickly.

Murmurs floated above the room once more.

"Yeah. If you don’t stay in this class that’s okay, but take the note that if your boss tries to kill you, it’s a massive red flag," she laughed and lightened the mood.

A middle-twenties, or early thirties, studious man with thin, artsy glasses a few rows back raised his hand. "You seem pretty mentally sound. Is talking about this stuff a trigger? Physical or mental? Do outside actions, noises, or certain people affect you based on your experiences in that room?"

_ ‘Ah yes, there’s the high-level psychology student.’  _ They were her least favorite type of drop in, but she didn't let the annoyance show on her face. Over the years, many that were seeking degrees in psychology or psychiatry took just her first class in order to ask a few questions. This gentleman was like the others, reciting his earlier assigned homework from the new $300 book she could see open on the elbow-shaped half desktop attached to the seat.

Heaving a sigh, which she hoped everyone took as steadying herself, “sure. I look over my shoulder when I'm not at home, and that includes every day that I’m here. In eight years I've excelled at being the closest thing to a hermit I can possibly be, which is so different from how I lived before that room. I don't leave my house much if I can help it, and that's because being out still kind of scares me." She paused to collect her thoughts, but if someone else asked a question in between, she'd take the out. 

No one did. In fact, everyone was still waiting for her to finish the answer.

Looking down a bit as she collected her thoughts, she recited the answer she’d given many times. "I sleep with a night light on because waking up in the dark is disorienting and sometimes terrifying. Night terrors are fortunately few and far between, but once a month is pretty common." Holding up her left hand, the tip of her thumb meeting the tips of the other fingers, "I still have numb spots on my fingertips from the damage of them being broken for so long, and my left shoulder is still sore if I lean on it the wrong way because of several days of dislocation."

The psych student nodded, his thumb and pointer finger on his chin as if he had her in his chair at an office. "What do you do to prepare for today’s sessions? What works when you have to dredge all of this stuff up?"

Oh how badly she wanted to be honest with this cocky little shit about the amazing morning in bed with Vaughn. Here was this guy, sitting in the audience as if those cut and paste questions that he borrowed from the very book on his desk made him a golden goose. Did he honestly think that in eight years no one had asked her about P.T.S.D.? She made up her tired mind quickly and settled on a completely honest answer, whether or not that’s what the student had actually wanted. An airy chuckle left through exhale as her eyes met his with a mischievous twinkle.

"The night before the first day of the semester I go to bed pretty early. This day is...pretty draining. It's my choice to do this, and I stand by that as so many people walk in here just to ask me what they think is a shared experience.”

Sydney’s eyes darkened and her voice was a little louder, but there was no hard edge. She wasn’t angry, but she definitely wasn’t as relaxed as she sought to portray earlier. “Believe me when I say that I do not see what happened to me as something that I shared with  _ anyone _ . It was my job to sit there and take it, and I did it alone. None of you were there with me despite the fact that every single one of you could pull the footage up on your phones in an instant." 

Looking around, a kink to the edge of her mouth brought out the dimple on her left cheek. That little grin released a pent up breath that many in the audience were holding. "For those here that have kids, you know that going to bed early is almost impossible as a parent, but my husband sends me on my way and does an amazing job of keeping our two kids up for as long as they can last. For the little one that’s about ten, maybe ten-thirty, though last night he made it to ten-forty-five. Our older kid is outgrowing this, unfortunately, and lasted until around one in the morning.”

Nods from both sexes around the room pointed out who were parents, their exhausted and vigorous agreement giving them away.

"Why?" The psych student continued thinking he'd hit paydirt with his obviously very unique question.

"Because in the morning, a three-year-old and an eight-year-old are...a force to be reckoned with, even though there’s two of us. A good night's sleep means that at six in the morning, sometimes earlier, two excited kids jump into bed with you ready to start their day. Keeping them up as long as they can go means they won't be awake the next morning until at least eight, and if miracles exist, closer to nine."

She paused with a chuckle. "I would not be able to do today without the morning with my husband and the fact that my kids are still unconscious."

Some eyebrows lifted, scattered laughter and diverted eyes with heads bouncing in agreement as many throughout the audience caught her meaning, whether by experience themselves or picking up on the soft and reverent tone of her voice.

"That's it? Just...not having to worry about kids?" He sounded shocked and wasn’t prepared for the bright smile that accompanied a slight shake of her head. The long hair bounced around her shoulders and she absent-mindedly ran her fingers through the tresses before tucking each side behind her ears.

Laughing from around him brought a blush to his face as he realized he wasn't picking up on any of the subtle context she'd provided, mostly because he wasn’t hearing what she was saying. He was listening, but listening enough to wait for your chance to speak wasn’t the same as hearing what was being said. He still wasn't getting it, and that fact made him shift uncomfortably in the seat.

She gave in and tossed him a bone. "Chapter fourteen," she laughed, pointing to the psychology textbook he still had open.

The auditorium waited with bated breath as the pages turned, and his eyes went wide when he read the title  **_Psychology of Intimacy_ ** at the top of the page.

"You aren't my first psychology student today, let alone over the last eight years that's tried to do their homework on me in this class." This shut him down completely. “If  _ you _ have a question, I’m happy to answer. Leave Freud in the hallway.” She pointed to someone else with their hand raised.

To preserve his integrity, he sunk low into his seat and closed the book, sliding it into his backpack as someone else’s voice filled the auditorium. 

“What was the coolest thing you ever did as a spy? Can we call you that? You were a spy, weren’t you?” Initial confidence petered away to insecurity.

“Yes, I was a spy. I...haven’t ever been asked that. Uh,” she thought as mission after mission poured through her mind. “That’s a very hard question to answer. A good mission is when nothing goes wrong, but I got so bored when everything went right.” The audience laughed. “My favorite moments usually involved cool disguises and being sneaky, hiding in plain sight and speaking different languages. But...jumping out of planes and driving away from an explosion on a motorcycle was the adrenaline rush that kept me going back into the field.”

She paused and pictured Vaughn shaking his head disapprovingly in her mind. "My husband would absolutely disagree. He was in his element when everything went perfect and was very boring. He’s a bit of a Boy Scout."

"Did you two meet at the C.I.A.?" The kind older woman from before asked.

Her memories flew like a video reel through her mind. Meeting in his office, holding his hand at the pier, the secrecy of the warehouse and their secluded corner out of range of the cameras, and everything between then and now. “We did. When I found out I was on the wrong side I fixed that as soon as possible. He became my handler, the upper level staff that would meet and give me countermissions against the bad guys. Being together was a very big no-no, but neither of us were great at following all the rules when it came to each other,” she said with a laugh.

"Does your older kid know anything about...you know. Anything?" A voice from her left asked.

Sydney shook her head. "Not yet. Eight isn't a great age to learn that kind of truth. There will come a day where I will have to tell them everything, but I hope that day stays far, far away. I know it won’t and we’ll handle it as best as we can when it happens, but for now, everything is blissful ignorance."

She uncurled her legs and slid off the desk, paused, and folded her hands before her as a gentle smile soothed the audience. "Last question."

She gestured to a student sitting in the front row. "How did you get over everything? You seem...really normal for someone that got tortured to death, no offense. How did you get over it so you could go back to who you were before?"

Sydney smiled at the thoughtful question, another one that came up more often than not. 

“Before entering the sea, a river trembles with fear. She looks back at the path she had traveled from the peaks of the mountains, the long winding road crossing forests and villages, and in front of her she sees an ocean so vast that to enter there seems nothing more than to disappear forever.”

The auditorium was still and silent, not even a breath being taken as the words rolled through memory from her lips. With the pause, she took a breath meeting the eyes of the student whose query she answered with a poem.

“But there is no other way. The river cannot go back; nobody can go back. To go back is impossible in existence.” Her gaze shifted to the older woman with the greying hair, the kind crinkles at the edges of the eyes deep as she smiled through the tears on her cheeks.

“The river needs to take the risk of entering the ocean because only then will fear disappear, because that’s where the river will know it’s not about disappearing into the ocean, but of becoming the ocean.”

Changing her focus to the embarrassed psych student, the man now listened rather than waiting for his moment to speak. 

“That was written by Khalil Gibran, a man whose work we will heavily study in this class.” A lingering, reverent silence kept the crowd hushed, no one daring to speak lest it break the spell that was just weaved into what felt like such a special moment - though for her it was the fifth of the day. Sydney spotted more than a few glistening eyes in the overhead lights. 

“My experience is that...no matter who you are or what’s happened in your life, it’s all part of who you’re becoming. I am not defined by those six days. They are part of what’s brought me here today but...they aren’t the thing that’s shaped who I am any more than someone sitting in here is defined by this being their first day at college or their thousandth, and everything before or between. A lot of you came here just to be able to say you asked Sydney Bristow a question, and that’s fine. That’s now part of your experience. However, the takeaway isn’t that you asked someone something, it’s that you learned something about yourself through the asking.”

Sydney stopped for a moment after letting her words land. “Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final.”

**...**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That last part was from the poem Go to the Limits of Your Longing by Rilke. 
> 
> The next chapter is the last. Originally, the above was the ending and I was so happy with it. I’d written it MONTHS ago and then had to put the rest in between. However, my brain got an idea, as it does, so there’s one more after this one.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading, commenting, giving a kudos - it’s so appreciated for a fandom that doesn’t have many folks loitering, but it’s been a joy to create this adventure and live for over a year and a half in this world again, and I’m genuinely sad that this story is coming to an end!


	35. Finale: Love Wins

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [](https://www.flickr.com/photos/190971129@N06/50892599728/in/dateposted/)

**Part 35: Love Wins - Finale**

**Tokyo - Present Day**

The clink of the metal clasps at her waist echoed off the cement of the rooftop as blaring horns bounced up the skyscraper walls. The warm, moist air followed the edges of the buildings and tossed her brown hair into her face, so she bundled it up into a tight ponytail. Checking the straps on the mostly empty backpack, she pulled at the line that was connected to the belt harness, turned her back to the city, and hopped off the ledge.

Falling a few feet, she squeezed the hand brake a bit, but her stomach jumped and adrenaline spiked as she whizzed down the side of the skyscraper, her partner’s voice crackling into her ear. “Slow down that descent, Evil Knievel.”

She laughed as the sound of wind rushed through the com. “You’re such a grandma, James. That’s why you’re in the van.”

“You’re coming up on 47.”

“Copy that,” she said through a dimpled smile as she slowed to a stop outside of the designated window. “I’m not going to forgive Marshall if this ring cuts off my finger.”

The male voice laughed, “it probably won’t but just in case, maybe...pick your least favorite finger?”

“That’s comforting.” Grumbling, she slipped it from her middle finger to her ring on her right hand. Being a lefty, something she’d inherited from her father, if she did lose a finger, it wouldn’t hamper her ability to signal while getting cut off in traffic or write with a pen.

The metal was cool as it slid past her knuckle, and she could feel the button on the inside with her thumb. Taking a calming breath, she pushed it and saw the electric blade fire to life pointing away from her fist. The electric energy was supposed to heat the metal to slice through the glass, and in the tech office, it did exactly that. She had her doubts that a controlled test in an airconditioned office was a decent simulation for 47 stories up on the side of a building at night in Tokyo.

As if the window was butter, the knife-ring carved in, and the suction cup she stuck roughly to the center caught the weight of the glass before it fell, all as intended. One of these days she wouldn’t doubt the C.I.A.’s king of tech. 

Sliding it inside the office, the shape hitting the carpet with a dull thud, she lifted and pointed her legs, curling them through the hole to pull in the rest of her body. Once her feet were on stable ground, she unclipped the harness and let it dangle back outside.

“I’m in.”

“Alright, Phoenix, hook me into that computer and you find the safe. We’ll be in and out with none the wiser.”

“Why do you have to jinx everything?”

Slipping the backpack off one shoulder, she pulled out a palm-sized device. Holding the button as instructed, the tiny beep and green light indicated it was ready to transmit. Setting it on top of the tower, nothing happened.

“You getting a signal?”

“No. Did you push the button?”

“Yes. Of all the things I’m supposed to do, that’s the easiest. I pushed the button.”

“Uhhhhhh, hold on a sec.”

Clicking on a small flashlight in her palm, she pointed it at the computer. “The green light’s on, it should be connecting to the wireless through the firewall.”

“Yes, I know. I was also in the briefing.”

She sighed. “Do you need me to hook in using the USB backup?” She almost repeated the ask as the silent response took more time than her patience gifted.

“Oh,” he said in a low and quiet tone.

“Oh as in...duh?”

“Isabelle-” he started and then stopped, though he wore a smile she couldn’t see but could hear through his voice. “It’s at forty percent.”

“Did you forget to turn on the monitor?”

“No,” he said, far too quickly and with a higher defensive tone.

Rolling her eyes, “‘kay.” She clicked off the light and moved farther into the office, a large, towering, steel safe off in the corner. “I’ve got eyes on the safe; I’m going to hook in and crack it open.”

“Copy.”

Sticking the flashlight to her magnetic wristband and pointing it down, she removed the cone-shaped hunk of metal from the bag. A small sigh left her lips as she recalled Marshall’s excitement when he introduced her to the device.

_ “Your mom totally rocked this on a mission back in the day. Since we’re, you know, looking at a very similar kind of safe,” he paused with a cackle and shrug of his shoulders, “why reinvent the wheel?” _

_ Pushing down her desire to roll her eyes at yet another mention of the Los Angeles Joint Task Force offices’ best agent, whose shadow she found herself constantly inside, she merely sent a kind smile and folded her hands while listening. _

_ "So you just...you put this end over the wheel, and it’ll activate a magnetic ring to hold it in place. It’ll spin on its own and find the combination in a few seconds. Click in the, you see the...the ring thingy at the top? When it unlocks, it’ll disengage the magnets. Could you, you know, bring it back?” He paused, clutching the device to his chest, “it just...there’s a lot of history here...for me.” Another pause, “I miss your mom, so...memories.” _

_ “I’ll bring it back, Marshall.” _

Despite being over twenty years old, it worked like new. In a matter of fifteen seconds, which she only knew because she counted, the safe unlocked with a click. 

“Safe’s op-” an ear-ringing alarm screamed the moment she turned the handle with a click and pulled the heavy door open, the gasp sucked from her throat and it felt like her heart and stomach switched places. “Shit!”

**…**

**Los Angeles - Eight Months Earlier**

“I’m bringing you into this office because I think it’s the best place for you to shine at this point in your career, but also because your test scores indicate that you’re ready to be here.”

Isabelle resisted the urge to fidget back and forth between the weight on her right to her left feet and maintained a perfect stoic calm, though it was easy to see the excitement she exuded. 

“Thank you, Uncle Dix-” she stopped quickly, “Director Dixon.”

The man laughed in response and pointed to the chair in front of the desk, the young woman taking it quickly. “There are going to be times when I’m talking to you as Uncle Dixon, and there will be times where I’ll be the hard-assed director, and you’ll know which is which. First, Uncle Dixon speaking, have you told your parents?”

The look on her face was all he needed, and much as he’d thought, his close relationship with her that had been maintained her whole life left her easy for him to read. “Isabelle…”

“I know...I - I know. I will, just...they spent so much time telling me cool stories and then in the same breath to not follow in their footsteps, and...that’s not fair. Jumping off a building and parachuting onto a train sounds  _ awesome _ . I know it’ll be different and probably not as exciting, but, I feel like I’m supposed to be here.”

Dixon smiled. “God...you’re just like her.” What he hadn’t prepared for was the eye-roll. “What was that look?”

Marcus could tell she was choosing her words carefully, her studious green eyes focused on his desk instead of his curious face. “Everything the last two weeks has been ‘ _ I knew your mom _ ’, or, ‘ _ you have a lot to live up to _ ’,” she groused. “I can’t do this job if I have to be my mom. I...feel like I have to do what she did for people to even notice me.”

“Izzy, if you find yourself on the path your mom was on, come to me so we can fix it as fast as humanly possible. Try your hardest to  _ not _ take her path. She didn’t get to choose anything about her job, and it took  **everything** from her. I won’t let that happen with you.”

The girl shrugged, but couldn’t hold back her self-conscious ticks. The ends of her long-sleeved shirt were tugged down and folded into her palms, her fingers playing with the hem of both, and she nervously chewed at her bottom lip with a furrowed brow while thinking.

“Can...can I ask that people stop comparing us? Can you do that?”

“Why do you think that being compared to your mom is a bad thing?”

The huff of air she released acted as the walls of a broken dam, and he heard the frustration and anger behind her words as she talked. “Every single day I walk in here and am reminded that I’m a  _ legacy _ kid. Everything I do is compared to what  _ she _ did - what  _ they _ did, and I can’t live up to that. I’m so excited, Dixon, but every one of those moments just sucks that excitement right out of me. I know some of it was hard for her, I know it was hard for my dad and this office, but I just want to get away from that, you know? I want to be my own agent when the time comes, and I’m constantly reminded that unless I be like my  _ mom _ , I’m…” she paused trying to find the right word, “ _ less _ .”

Dixon stayed quiet, his brain lost in memory as well as understanding. A bit of guilt bubbled up to the surface as he recalled many of the times he had compared Isabelle Vaughn with Sydney Bristow, and that guilt made him lean back in his chair and fold his hands over his stomach.

“Did you ever watch any of it?”

The daughter was taken back and confused, and it showed on every inch of her face. “Of what?”

“You said that you know things were hard for her, but did you ever watch any of the footage? Do you really know what happened?”

Realization dawned and she dropped her gaze to her lap. “Yeah, I know most of what happened; no, I’ve never watched any of it. It was forbidden until I was an adult anyway, but the more I thought about watching anything the more I realized that I don’t  _ want _ to.”

Marcus nodded. “Neither did I. I avoided it for a few days and just got briefing notes.”

“Look,” she started, but his hand rose and stopped her.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” she said quietly, though wasn’t exactly sure why he was the one apologizing. 

“I’m not sorry for comparing you to your mom, just to clarify, but I understand why you’re asking what you’re asking. I just want to be honest with you.” 

He unfolded his hands and slowly stood, making his way over to the row of file cabinets on the other side of the office. “Your mom’s entry test score was one of the highest this office had ever seen. Even at SD-6, they had the same test. Well, a reasonable facsimile.” Grabbing a stack of files he moved back to the desk, this time circling around to sit next to the nervous young upstart. “If anyone asks, I didn’t give you any of this, and we never had this conversation.”

She rolled her eyes a bit but took the single folder he offered into her hands. The label on the tab read  **Vaughn, Isabelle** . Opening it, she found a stapled copy of her entrance exam, physical, and the results of the field training she’d done a few weeks prior. 

“What is this?”

“That’s you. That’s your whole file.”

Pointing to the thick stack still on his lap, “what’s that?”

“This is your mom’s. Well...all the important stuff.” Reaching into the top, the folder worn and ragged at the edges, he pulled out a few sheets stapled together and passed them her way.

It was nearly the same entry test, though Sydney’s copy was less crisp. Her eyes went wide at the analysis stamped at the top. “I...I got a higher score.”

“By one point.”

“Holy shit,” she said quietly, Dixon laughing.

“Most of the people here only know one thing about your mom, and that’s the story  _ he  _ ended up giving the world. All they know about her is that she got caught and tortured, but you and I both know  _ that _ isn’t who she is.” He held the stack reverently. “Maybe...maybe some of them read her file because of everything that happened and that impressed them. Maybe some of them were here that week or knew someone that was. Maybe they knew that we did everything we could to find her only to come up short, so their admiration is born from guilt.”

“Why is everyone so fixated on that one moment? It was one moment...one  _ thing _ . It’s done. Why can’t people just let it go?” It had been a question she’d wanted to ask for years but hadn’t had the resource, or the guts, to let it out.

Even now, the hurt that passed Dixon’s face took her back a step into regret, “I’m sorry, that’s...not what I meant.”

He recovered with a tight smile, though it didn’t crinkle his eyes as she was accustomed to seeing. “You might look like her and think like her, but you talk like your dad. That’s something I’ve always thought was so fascinating about you, Izzy. You...you’re wholly and completely a Bristow but you’re tethered to the ground because you’re a Vaughn. Sometimes, not often, she pours out of you just...like...that.”

“Come on, don’t. I already said I hate that,” she growled, tossing the files back onto his lap.

“What you just said proves that you haven’t watched any of the footage.”

Her ire was rising. “I already said I hadn’t.”

Dixon shifted the folders on his lap, one hand reaching out and setting Isabelle’s on the desk to not get mixed up in the rest.

“How honest do you want me to be right now?” His question was quiet and serious.

“I have no idea how to answer that because I don’t know what information you’re offering.”

“You asked ‘ _ why can’t people just get over it _ ’, and I want to know how honest you want me to be. I’m one of those people who can’t.”

She sighed, raising and then dropping her hands. “It’s different with you, unc. You...you  _ know _ her. People out there,” she gestured to the office, “and at the damn grocery store? They don’t know her, yet it’s always the first thing that anyone brings up when they realize who I am.”

His pointed stare ended her rant. “How...honest?”

Lifting his hand, he held a single folder, about an inch thick, the papers inside clipped and stapled haphazardly throughout the stack from what she could see.

“Go for it.” 

He knew she was answering via frustration - another Bristow trait burying deep the Vaughn rationale as she led with her heart instead of her head.

“You’re sure?”

She wanted to hit him, and her flashing green eyes must have indicated that for her. 

Marcus nodded, and it was as if a dark shroud dropped down over his face. His eyes drooped a bit, the wrinkles beginning to deepen on his cheeks around his mouth. Under and around, his eyes seemed more pronounced and his shoulders slumped below the crisp white button-up.

“It wasn’t fair, you know. Everything about our lives back then was secrecy. Every...action, and trip, and moment when you got home from work. I won’t lie that it was easier for me than it was for her, because when she learned the truth, all of that doubled. Hell...her  _ secrets _ had secrets, and there was just this...constant worry that didn’t leave her face for months. Those months turned into a year, one year turned into almost two, and I kept seeing things in her change.” He paused as a ghost of a smile passed his lips. 

“She was still  _ Sydney _ , but she...wasn’t. Truth changes people, no matter how you learn it, and the truth of everything about your mother was given, without her permission, to the world. In an instant...she was the most famous person on the planet, and that wasn’t fair. She’d done everything she could to keep secret after secret hidden, and here was this guy on the internet with unlimited access to millions of people giving it all away.”

“For six days he dragged whatever he could out of her. Information, tears...blood - and we all had to sit and watch. Every newscast, from CNN to local, focused on  _ her _ . It was inescapable and it was horrible. What they were able to show on live t.v. would have turned your stomach, let alone what was shown on the website itself. Even if you had no idea who the person was it was hard to see, but it was worse for us because we knew her. We knew  **everything** and still had to watch.”

She felt the pressure of emotion at the back of her throat, sadness sharing room with fear. The sadness was always there. Since she’d learned about the event back in eighth grade, that sadness was buried as a seed in her heart and grew from the knowledge that someone she loved with every ounce of her soul had gone through that kind of experience. The fear was new. The fear stemmed from the fact that Isabelle’s culminating knowledge of the end of her mom’s work with the C.I.A. was where Dixon was  _ starting _ with his truth. She held back the tears that pooled in watery emerald eyes trying to corral her feelings behind a thoughtful partition.

“She endured six days of torture, Isabelle.  **_Six days_ ** . Stabbed, beaten, shocked, interrogated, sleep-deprived...she took it and didn’t give up one...single...piece...of useful intelligence. She  _ died _ for this job in front of the whole world. After everything we’d seen...everything he’d done...we watched her die.”

That was news to her and he saw the shift in her demeanor and face. “I don’t understand...”

He held out another folder and her hands shook this time when she took it from him. Lifting the top slowly, the facade she’d been holding together crumbled and the tears fell in hot streams down her cheeks. Battered and bloody, the woman that had raised her so warmly sat bound in a fixed metal chair above a drain puddled with blood, head lolling with her chin against her chest, pale and lifeless.

Nausea bubbled up from her stomach and she quickly closed the file and handed it back, dropping it to the stack before he could take it as if the paper burned her skin.

Dixon nodded. “Being compared to her because of your drive, ambition, brown hair, dimples...it all comes from a place of  _ good _ , kiddo. Don’t see it as bad, see it for what it is: you  _ are  _ the legacy kid. You have to live up to the hype of someone that  _ died _ for this job, just like your dad. His father was a great agent, and he died, and you are having to navigate that path the same way your father did thirty years ago.”

She hadn’t thought of that. In the hope of keeping her new profession a secret from her parents, the worry of scolding and disappointment she wasn’t prepared to incur, she forced her story into an elaborate hoax of ‘law practice’. She hadn’t realized how hard things were becoming - could become. Distancing herself from the two people most prominent in her life, two people she trusted the most in the world, was eating away at her bit by bit.

“If you saw it, you couldn’t let it go, that’s just the way of things. Don’t...okay, don’t watch it. Ever. Trust me, the picture is bad enough, and your mom will kick my ass up and down the street for even letting you see it.” He set the stack on the desk and scooted the chair closer, his hands held out waiting for her to accept his offering. “I’ll tell you what,” he left off.

Sliding her small fingers into his calloused palms, “what?”

“I’ll keep your secret if you keep mine.”

Relief washed through her soul and she nodded before throwing her arms around his neck and yanking him into a tight hug. “Thank you, Uncle Dixon,” she sniffled.

Pulling back, he cupped her cheek and brushed at a stray tear, “if you ever need to have a...meltdown, you come to me. We can fix anything, I promise.”

“Okay,” she sniffled, her eyes a shade darker than when she’d entered. 

“Listen, Izzy, I am sorry for not giving you your own space. I’ll admit that you standing here takes me back to meeting Sydney for the first time at SD-6, and...that’s on me. I shouldn’t be putting that on you. Keep in mind, however, that I expect  **this** agent,” he said, emphasis added as he held up her file with a shake, “to be the best. I’ll hold your feet to the fire if she isn’t.”

“Okay.”

“What was that?”

She chuckled past the lump in her throat. “Yes, sir.”

“Tell your parents,” he encouraged before gesturing to the door.

She turned to leave, though still seemed unsettled, and with a reminiscent sigh, Marcus watched her go.

**…**

**Tokyo - Present Day**

Flinging open the door, she looked into the safe, thankful that the only thing housed inside was what she’d been sent to retrieve. The blaring of the alarm was distracting, but she was beginning to tune it out.

“Security is on its way, you gotta bail,” James said in a hurried voice, the shrill ringing tone stabbing into his ear through the comm.

“No, I have time. I can do this.”

“Isabe-”

“I can  _ do _ it!” 

Grabbing the plastic carrying case, more a fat briefcase than anything, she flipped the lid open and spotted the metal fixture surrounded by foam-padding. Surrounding the metallic object were six motherboards underneath a transparent, locked piece of plexiglass. Twisting her torso, the empty backpack spun around to her front and, with a zip, she shoved the case inside. A pounding slam against the office door made her jump and lose her grip, the heavy pack landing hard atop her foot. Groaning in frustration before hauling it back over her shoulders, she cinched it tightly with a clip that went across her chest.

Once it was secure, she reached up to free the plastic-ended ripcord from the front pocket of the vest and ran full-tilt toward the opening in the window. A few feet from her destination, she skidded to a stop.

“Shit!” 

Jame’s concerned voice crackled into her ear. “What?”

Turning back, her flashing green eyes looked straight to the cone-shaped device still magnetized to the safe door. “Marshall’s cone...safe-cracking thingy!”

“It’s a piece of tech, Isabelle. Take the exit. Now!”

She could hear the hurried fingertips of the man outside furiously inputting the security code to unlock the door, and as she made it back to the safe, said door swung wide as she clicked the button to disengage the magnets. The slam of the main door against the wall of the office pulled her gaze, and the heavy device fell from her hand to land with a thud atop her already sore foot.

Though the only light that lit the room was that of the exit sign above him, the outer hallway of the offices was bright making the guard with his weapon drawn a perfect silhouette. In reaction, she tucked herself into the corner beside the safe, grabbed the handle of the safe door, and pulled it in front of her as the first shot fill the room with a sharp bang.

**…**

**Los Angeles - Six Months Earlier**

The pacing definitely wasn’t helping, but she couldn’t stop the restlessness in her legs. While the apartment wasn’t big, she had likely walked it from end to end and side to side fifty times since she’d gotten home from Francie’s restaurant.

“You don’t need to. You shouldn’t,” she scolded out loud, flopping onto the couch and turning on the flat-screen for distraction. 

Seconds later, “this isn’t working”.

Two months ago she’d been shown the picture. She didn’t blame Dixon, but it was the first image of her mother’s past life that she’d seen outside of Sydney’s C.I.A. identification badge, and he was right when saying that if you’d seen it you couldn’t let it go. Still, for two months she’d suppressed it and buried herself into training and seminars, shooting and MMA practice almost daily, and she was only a few weeks away from her final field test.

All the while, Isabelle had been feeding her parents the fascinating details of the new law firm she was working for in L.A., and that though it was an entry-level position, she was learning quickly despite the long hours. Graduation was looming, and then in just over four months, she’d be starting again in an attempt to get her master’s. This time in criminal forensics as she wasn’t sure if she was going to stick with a lawyer or a criminologist quite yet.

At least...that’s what she’d told them. 

With a near completed BS in political science and minors in Arabic, German, and Mandarin, she found herself wondering how much longer she could float the lie downstream before it hit the rapids.

Lawyers don’t speak multiple languages or get advanced degrees in criminology or forensics, but Operations Officers at the Central Intelligence Agency sure could, and she got lost in another bout of ‘ _ do I or don’t I _ ’. Hopping off the couch, she paced the room a few more times.

That damn picture was in her mind almost as much as the conversation that had happened a few hours earlier. The jerk that her friend Sara was dating had been all too happy to bring up the fact that, “ _ the sick footage of Bristow kicking that dude’s ass after he’d fucked her up _ ” was still his favorite clip on the internet. Once he’d learned that Isabelle was the daughter of one of the most famous, yet forgotten until someone sparked a memory, people around, she couldn’t escape him the rest of the night.

Question after question. Though she didn’t know any of the answers and had said that time and time again, he didn’t believe that she’d never watched any of it and pushed anyway. To her credit, Sara tried her best to curb his curiosity, but he’d been drinking pretty hard and stopping a twenty-something’s runaway mouth was nearly impossible.

“ _ There’s no way you didn’t see nothin’, c’mon. You’ve got all the inside information! How badass do the scars look? _ ”

She’d grown up with a knowledge of the scars dotting her mother’s arms and legs her whole life, not to mention the broken arm she said she’d gotten ‘ _ before Isabelle was born _ ’. Had that been part of the whole thing? Had that happened during  _ those six days _ , as Uncle Dixon had called them?

She genuinely didn’t know and it had been eating at her. How much of what her parents had told her was fact? How much was fiction to lighten the horrible load of said facts? 

_ ‘You have nothing to gain by watching even a second, and you know that. If you really want to know, all you have to do is ask.’ _ She could hear the rational advice in her head, her dad’s voice, and knew it was true.

_ ‘If you ask, it’ll make it seem like you were too scared to just look on your own.’ _ Self-doubt, right on cue.

_ ‘Asking doesn’t mean you’re weak, Isabelle.’ _

_ ‘Who thinks we’re weak?’ _

With a huff, she moved to the computer chair and her hands began to lift the lid of the laptop. Immediately slowing it as the bubble of nervousness popped in her stomach and extended to her shaking hands, she flopped back in the seat and ran the sweaty palms over her face with a groan.

“Fuck it,” she muttered, lifting the top and booting it up.

**...**

**Tokyo - Present Day**

With her fist clutching the handle like a lifeline, the steel braced against the length of her arm, the feeling of the three bullets slamming into the thick metal vibrated through skin and muscle and into her bones, migrating up and rattling her teeth. Thankfully, her split-second calculation had paid off, and the bullets stopped with no chance at punching through.

The man yelled in Japanese, Isabelle only understanding two or three of the words as his language wasn’t one in which she was becoming fluent, but the tone she  _ did _ understand and he was getting louder. She knew this meant he was walking toward her hiding spot. 

Leaning against the wall with her back, she lifted her leg and pressed the flat of her foot against the door. The moment the man’s fingers wrapped around the side, she kicked as hard as her toned, runner’s legs could kick. With a panging thock, the door slammed into the man’s outstretched arms and his leaning torso, and his grunt of pain made her wince as she imagined what it felt like to have half a ton of metal come suddenly screaming into your face.

The important thing was the clatter of the gun as it hit the carpeted floor. Springing out from behind the door she realized all too late that the guard wasn’t as stunned as she’d assumed, and the fist he threw caught her in the jaw. It wasn’t a hit that was hard enough to knock her out, but it did ring her bell a bit as a brief flash of stars danced at the edge of her vision.

A year of training and muscle memory kicked in, and the second punch was caught and redirected. With a sweep of her leg into his stomach, she knocked the air from his lungs and folded him at the waist to the floor. Another silhouette appeared at the doorway, arms held out with the pistol between his hands. This time, she heeded the growled orders of her partner, reached down to pick up the cone-shaped device, and bolted toward the window. 

With a jump, hoping that a limb or the backpack wouldn’t snag on the top or bottom of the oblong cutout in the glass, she dove through the hole in the window as her fist closed around the plastic knob she’d readied earlier. Pulling the cord once clear as gravity dragged her down, the outer compartment of the backpack burst away as a parachute hidden in the lining unfurled. With a jerk, the chute caught the rising air, and the metal tech tool slipped from her fingers. With another curse, she grabbed the strings to guide her descent as she tried to see the trajectory of the dropped device, though that proved futile at this height with her and the contraption falling at different speeds.

Landing on the road below, she spotted a sedan with a crumple in the top marred by a punctured hole that was parked on the quiet street beside the building. Cutting loose the chute, she tried the door and found it unlocked. Marshall’s device was sitting in the front seat looking squashed on one side and definitely worse for wear, but still intact. Grabbing it as sirens closed in on her position, she tucked it under her arm and bolted down the road toward the alley where she knew to meet her ride.

**…**

**Los Angeles - Six Months Earlier**

Two hours after searching and pressing play, she was a broken heap curled into herself on the chair, thighs hugged against her chest hiding her face as she sobbed. She didn’t have her mother’s photographic memory, but it was aggressively eidetic. Though she’d closed her eyes, she couldn’t unsee the tiny knife piercing the skin, the punches that split already bleeding lips and cheekbones. She also couldn’t unhear the cocky British voice that taunted over and over, and the last gasping breaths desperately sucked into oxygen-starved lungs at the end.

Her mom had died; Dixon had been right.

_ ‘Of course he was right...he was there.’ _ Right on cue, her own growling, doubt-filled voice punched her already tender heart.

The video was still playing, and before she could reach out and slam it closed,  _ “turn it off,” _ in a weak, scared, and hurt voice echoed through the speaker before the device shut down.

_ ‘I gotta get out...go for a drive and clear my head.’ _

Long drives along the coast always calmed her down. She assumed it was because she lived a stone's throw from the beach, the waves and warm sand a solace along with the reflection of the moon with its millions of starry friends.

So she drove. The lowered windows blew whatever strands had escaped from the quickly pulled together bun and tried to dry tears on her cheeks as plenty more renewed the trails.

She drove in a fog until she recognized the familiar gate leading to the secluded beach house. From what she could see all the lights were off, which made sense with the time reading around midnight on the dash. Fresh tears trekked down her cheeks as she grabbed the cell from her purse on the passenger seat, typing in hopes that someone would answer.

**Me:** you awake?

Isabelle held her breath for the entirety of the forty seconds it took before the phone vibrated with a ding in her palm.

**Mom:** always. What’s up?

**Me:** bad day…

Almost instantly, a reply.

**Mom:** come stay at the house. The boys are upstate for a hockey tournament. Girls weekend?

**Me:** k

Reaching out and punching in this month’s code, the gate rolled open. As she drove up to the house, her phone sounded again.

**Mom:** you can always come in, sweetie. You don’t have to ask.

The garage door was open and she saw the living room lights come to life. The SUV was gone so she pulled into the open spot and closed the garage behind her. Wiping at her cheeks, she tossed the phone into her purse and left it on the seat before climbing out.

Isabelle knew she was going to break the moment she saw the concerned brown eyes and heard the soft, motherly voice, but she also knew there was nothing to be done about that fact. Her heart was telling her that she  _ had _ to be here - her soul needed to know that her mother was alright after everything she’d foolishly watched that evening.

Her legs felt heavy, the flip flops slapping against the bottom of her feet as she slowly made her way toward the propped open door.

“What happened, Izzy?” 

Her mom didn’t look any different than the last time she’d seen her nearly a week ago, though Sydney had obviously been in bed as the long, finger-brushed hair swept to one side of her neck showed. The camisole clung to her waist, Isabelle’s a match only a different color. Despite the serious concern on her face, Sydney couldn’t help the small smile at the bright blue pajama pants, a size too large, that her daughter wore low on her hips, yellow rubber duckies printed in an obnoxious pattern across both legs.

“You died,” Isabelle sobbed, her arms hanging low as fat tears plopped on her cheeks. “You never told me that.”

The brokenness of her daughter and the sudden nervous energy was a one-two punch in her chest made of raw emotion. Being surprised by the subject always prompted a visceral reaction, and today was no different. With all of that hitting her at once, the mother hung her head with a wince trying to find the right thing to say.

“It...that’s not as easy to say as you think,” Sydney spoke quietly as she took the few steps separating them to pull her daughter into a tight hug. “Everything’s okay, sweetie.”

As expected, the soft tone removed the tourniquet from her feelings, and the angst she’d tried to keep at bay came pouring out. Isabelle was a half-inch taller than her mother yet she still folded into her arms like a little girl, her tears hitting Sydney’s shoulder.

The strong hug wasn’t released for several long moments, though Isabelle wasn’t looking to pull away. Doing what she’d done almost daily as a little girl, she began sobbing and talking at the same time in explanation.

“I’m so stupid!”

Rocking a bit back and forth, Sydney shook her head. “Shh, no, sweetie. Everything’s okay.”

“I didn’t...you-” shuddering gasp followed by a sob, “he killed you.”

Her mother pulled back, cupping the red and swollen, tear-stained cheeks and using the pads of her thumbs to wipe the never-ending wetness away. “It’s okay. Come on,” she urged, her hands moving to Isabelle’s arms and turning her toward the couch in the living room.

Pressing the sniffling and distraught young woman onto the cushion, Isabelle regarded the coffee table covered in piles of grading her mother had been doing earlier sitting next to a glass of wine abandoned with one mouthful left at the bottom.

Sydney pushed the wounded girl on her side against the comfortable cushions and climbed in behind her. Wrapping around her tight like when she was a little girl, the other arm propped her head to look down at the tumultuous cascade of emotions on her daughter’s face. Isabelle clutched the arm around her middle, her fingers finding the gentle divot of the scar along Sydney’s forearm, and a fresh wave of tears rolled across the bridge of her nose into the end pillow along with a shoulder-wracking sob.

The mother nodded and leaned in to press a kiss to her temple. “You are so much like your dad, I honestly thought the curiosity would never pull you hard enough to look.”

Isabelle’s response was to tighten her hold and burrow backward into the warmth and comfort. 

“We did this with your brother a few years ago because he’s...too much like me.”

“How,” sniffle, “how did  _ he  _ take it? He never told me that he,” sniffle, “he knew.”

Sydney smiled. “He slept with us two nights in a row and wouldn’t let me out of his sight for a week.”

Isabelle nodded. “A week sounds about right. How old was he?” She squeezed the arm again.

“Fourteen.”

A few more minutes passed as they lay there, the clock on the far wall timing their heartbeats. 

“Why, bean?”

It was rare that her parents used the beloved childhood nickname. Once the kids in middle school had gotten a hold of it, she’d demanded they never call her ‘bean’ again. Both reluctantly accepted, though they used it at certain times to drive home the fact that no matter how old she got, she was their baby.

“I don’t wanna talk,” she mumbled in a scratchy and strangled voice, Sydney acquiescing and pressing another kiss to Isabelle’s hair before resting with her cheek against her temple.

Swirling thoughts ebbed and flowed through each mind like the waves beyond the window before them. The television was off and facing the main couch, this other sofa the best spot in the living room aside from standing at the windows to look out at the beach. Isabelle was adrift in a sea of both comfort and tragedy, and though she knew everything was fine, she wasn’t able to get past the feeling of losing her mother. That fear and the deep, full well of sadness was a weight that was crushing her heart into her stomach.

It was Sydney who spoke first.

“I should have told you everything when you were old enough.”

To her surprise, Isabelle pushed away and sat up, Sydney following suit. Reaching and grabbing the abandoned glass of wine, the younger tipped it into her mouth with a shuddering sigh.

“Got any more?”

The insecurity, fear, sadness, and love that shone in those green eyes made the ache in Sydney’s heart pang against her ribs. Regret was an emotion she rarely entertained these days, but the last thirty minutes had hit her with at least three lethal doses. 

“Next best thing.” Cupping the girl’s chin and leaning in to press a motherly kiss to her forehead, she took the glass and moved into the kitchen.

Isabelle found herself spinning sideways to sit with her chin propped on the back to keep her mother in view the whole time, the mere feet of separation feeling as if they were miles. Rolling her eyes when she bypassed the wine rack and set the glass in the sink, the freezer opened and a gallon of ice cream hit the counter. The daughter loosed a heavy sigh at the tinkling sound of spoons clinking together before Sydney returned, sat on the floor, and set everything on the coffee table pushing the classwork aside.

“This is...this is  _ not _ wine, Mom.”

With a laugh, “well, wine is a depressant, and that doesn’t seem to be what you need right now.”

Wiping at her cheeks, and despite her complaint, Isabelle flopped from the couch to the carpet with a huff and used her spoon to poke at the hard top of the half-eaten, coffee-flavored treat. Though she hadn’t wanted any before, she now wanted some more than anything. Her soul regarded needing to wait for it to melt a bit before drowning her sorrows in sugar and cream a tragedy.

The pair lapsed into another bout of silence, Isabelle sorting out her brain and Sydney giving her space while also trying to get her own emotions into check. This wasn’t an easy subject even all these years later, but everything was compounded if she had zero time to prepare.

“When we were at the cabin for Christmas in eighth grade, and I’d caught you talking to Dad about everything,” Isabelle paused as her eyes darted around in an attempt to not look into what she knew would be an open and honest brown stare, “knowing what I know now...you didn’t tell me  _ anything _ .”

Sydney sighed and found herself looking at the bright yellow ducky on the lump of the girl’s knee as she collected the right words for both the situation and how she was feeling. “There’s no easy way to tell that to your kid. You were thirteen-”

“That’s,” her tone turned from sad to frustrated, “that’s not an excuse. Mom, you were  _ tortured  _ to death! I shouldn’t have learned that truth from fucking  _ YouTube _ .”

Turbulent brown met green. “How, Isabelle? What words could I have said that would have made that knowledge easier then? Or now?”

Sydney hadn’t prepared for the tight shake that caused a few more loose strands of matching coffee-colored hair around Isabelle’s neck. “But that’s not fair. You shouldn’t have made that choice for me.”

“You can’t blame us for trying to spare you from that heartache, sweetheart, that’s  _ literally _ our job.”

The Vaughn rationality slunk forward into her consciousness, Isabelle realizing that she wasn’t angry, though you couldn’t tell that fact by the tone of her voice.

“I’m not...mad, Mom,” the whimper in her voice was returning along with the pressure of the emotional bubble at the back of her throat, “I’m...sad.”

Reaching out, Sydney squeezed her hand and held fast. “I get it.”

“Can...can I ask you questions?”

Sydney wanted desperately to say no, but she couldn’t. The full day in the lecture hall where she played Q and A with her classes took hours of mental preparation and a morning of gentle love to remind her that the room... **that room** ...was so very far away. This moment was impromptu and terrifying. She failed as she tried not to let that internal dilemma show on her face, her days of instant compartmentalization long behind her.

Isabelle saw every emotion and memory flash behind the dulling brown eyes in the few seconds before the wall was constructed. Sydney was an expert at controlling her emotions, but Isabelle recognized that right now, it didn’t matter how many years had passed - the pain and fear from the time spent in that situation was always there, hiding just beneath the surface. Never would she have thought her mother’s strength to be a thin veneer, but a lot had happened in her mind since that damn picture.

_ “The truth changes you, no matter how you get it,” _ Dixon’s words rang in her mind. Despite not really understanding what that meant the months ago that wisdom had been imparted, she did now.

“Do...do you have any regrets?”

The breath Sydney released showed how nervous she’d been about the impending query, and Isabelle realized that as terrified as her mother had been, she was going to see it through.

Wiping at the sudden wetness on her cheeks and letting out a relieved chuckle, “I mean...everyone has regrets. Regrets now? Then? Before?”

“You just...you’ve always been so strong, and I...after living through all that I’m not sure if I’d have any. Regrets, that is.”

Sydney gave a dimpled smile and pulled back to fold her hands into her lap. Deciding on full honesty, she nodded and spoke.

“Not getting a chance to say goodbye to - to your dad, your grandpa...I’ll always know what that feels like. That regret will always be there.”

Isabelle frowned. “Why? I mean...I get having it at the time, but...now?”

“Once it’s there, it’s there, sweetie. That kind of regret never goes away. Not saying what’s needed to be said will always be there, and your brain will remind you at the strangest times, almost like...something you forgot that it thinks it’s helping you remember.”

“What, like suddenly remembering to call your grandfather the day  _ after _ his birthday?”

Sydney breathed an airy chortle, short and quick, though a moment later the smile faded. “Imagine realizing you’ll never get to have two amazing kids. That...the life you’ve wanted for months with the man you love more than anything will  _ never  _ happen. Every part of your body fills with regret that you didn’t realize was possible.”

Isabelle expected her mother to turn away as the brown eyes filled with tears, those already pooling and waiting for their turn sliding down her cheeks to the angle of her jaw. Wiping at her nose with the back of a hand, the eyes instead held her daughter’s like pools of chocolate-colored glue keeping her in place.

“Your lungs regret the breath that they can’t take; your heart regrets the beat it forgets, and you just...your mind holds onto all that. It...there’s no feeling that comes close and there’s no good way to describe it other than...it’s awful.”

Sydney felt the squeeze of Isabelle’s fingers clutching her hand.

“I have... _ never _ told anyone those regrets,” her voice hitched as she spoke, “not even your dad.”

Reaching for a distraction, the daughter lifted the spoon back up and sank it into the now melty ice cream, the glob almost falling off as she rushed it into her mouth.

Sydney joined in, the pair wiping at their cheeks. “I’d rather regret something I did than something I didn’t. You...you have that too. You get it from me, and it sucks and I’m sorry about that,” she chuckled and took a bite of her own.

“You know what?” Isabelle sighed after the pair had picked at the melting dessert for a few minutes.

Sydney didn’t answer with words, merely giving a gentle lift with her chin.

The daughter shrugged, “it doesn’t matter and...I’m sorry for laying it all on you. You’re pretty badass, and if I can be half a hero as you, maybe I’ll do pretty good.”

The renewed sheen of tears in the brown eyes was followed by a genuine smile. Gone was the image Dixon had hit Isabelle with of the broken woman in the chair, the face bloodied and pale. Gone were the more recent moving images of the damage being inflicted. All she could remember was the mornings of gentle wake-ups, pancakes, dressing up like everything under the sun, and days where she spent the morning listening to her mother recite poetry and teach as she colored quietly in the adjacent office.

To her, her mother had never been the person in the chair, why give that dominance now?

For Sydney, it confirmed what her suspicions had been for the last few months: Isabelle was C.I.A. Pride mixed with deep fear and worry. She didn’t want to give away her thoughts, so she grinned and winked.

“Pretty well,” she corrected her daughter’s grammar.

“Ugh, you’re such a teacher.”

Pointing with her spoon, Sydney grabbed her attention. “Don’t ever forget that a hero might still need to get their shit together. It’s okay to fall apart right after you’re strong. You’re half Bristow, which means that it’ll happen, so don’t fight it too much. Be a badass and then cry while eating a gallon of coffee ice cream.”

Isabelle laughed and felt her body begin to relax. “Girls weekend, huh?”

**...**

**Tokyo: Present Day**

Ducking into the alley, she slumped over with her hands on her knees trying to catch her breath. Her heart was hammering against her sternum, and though she would normally take a moment to revel in the adrenaline-soaked fact that she’d just parachuted out of a building using her backpack, she didn’t have time. 

The phone zipped into the pocket of her cargo pants buzzed against her leg once, twice, and then thrice as she fumbled with the zipper. Assuming it was Dixon calling to tear her a new one, she winced as  **‘MOM’** flashed on the screen. Knowing that James was listening on the other end of the comm and wouldn’t let her live the conversation down, she also knew she couldn’t  _ not _ answer the call.

“Damn it,” she growled with a pant. Taking a few more breaths to try and calm down her racing heart, she answered. “Hi, Mom! What’s up?”

Sydney put her on speaker, she and Vaughn hovering over the phone in the kitchen. “Hey, honey, is everything okay?”

_ ‘Damn it!’ _ “Yeah! I was just getting a run in on the treadmill at the hotel. What’s up?” Throwing the lie out she did quick mental math hoping it wasn’t a bizarre time to be in the gym in San Francisco.

_ ‘Bullshit,’  _ Vaughn mouthed, Sydney swatting at him.

“I was just wondering if you were going to be back from your trip in time for your brother’s game tomorrow afternoon.”

“Yep! Can’t wait!” Her voice was opposite to her body language, her hand coming up to hit her forehead as she facepalmed and stomped her foot. “I’ll be home late morning I think, then I can drive out to the house.”

Vaughn tossed out, “how was the client meeting?” Isabelle rolled her eyes realizing that the parents had her on speakerphone.

As her breathing calmed, she saw the tactical van rolling down the alleyway heading toward where she stood with the phone to her ear and the heavy backpack clinging to her shoulders.

“Oh you know, boring. I get to take the notes and refill their water glasses.”

“You’ll get there. Baby steps are important. Just don’t put your Bristow foot in your mouth,” he chuckled and stepped away from the counter so his wife couldn’t reach him.

“It was nice knowing you, Daddy. I’ll miss you,” Isabelle joked with a laugh.

Sydney glared at her jester of a husband, “don’t forget your report due on Thursday.”

“Mom,” she whined. “Why did I have to take  _ your  _ class again?”

“Because it’s the only one they offer, and it’s required. See you tomorrow. Be safe,” she finished, a habit since she’d figured out the truth of their daughter’s occupation.

“It’s a flight from San Francisco, not anything like what you and Dad used to do. I think I can handle it.”

The parents stifled their laughter and hung up.

“She’s good,” Sydney shrugged and filled a glass of water.

“She’s twenty-two, she’ll slip up. Izzy’s always been a daddy’s girl...I’ll get it one way or another.”

Sydney pointed with a scowl, “no cheating.”

Vaughn put on his best innocent face, though she didn’t buy the display as it was accompanied by a shrug as he took slow steps in her direction around the island.

“Have I told you how beautiful you are today?”

His compliments still fluttered through her stomach to her heart like a herd of butterflies, even after over twenty years, but she was also wiser from the experience.

“Only twice,” she answered, turning and heading toward the office to catch up on grading. 

Michael grinned and watched her go, “I’ll up my game.”

…

Climbing into the van, she tossed the backpack into the corner and slid onto the bench seat as it lurched ahead with squealing wheels.

“You’re not going to be able to hide it from them forever, you know,” her partner groused from behind the wheel, his tan complexion alternating from brighter to darker as they passed beneath streetlamps heading toward the airport.

“Just...focus on the road.”

He laughed at the defensive tone he was getting used to hearing in her voice when she talked about her parents. “Look, they have more experience than most of the people in our office combined, and your grandfather is a legend. Who better to give advice than them? They lived  _ this  _ for  _ years _ !” He gestured with his arms at the machinery in the van as well as the bright and bustling nighttime lights of Tokyo.

Isabelle rolled her eyes, “Can I go one minute without someone trying to compare me to everyone else in my family? I’m doing things my way, not their way.” Annoyed, she pulled off the gloves and tossed them across the van with a huff.

Sympathetic and more experienced brown eyes matched hers in the rear-view mirror. “You’re definitely making your own mark, you know that. You’re already more of a pain in the ass than she ever was in her first year, according to the records.”

She couldn’t help the dimpled smile as her bright green eyes sought an apology. “I’ll tell them. I just...wanna be further in, you know?”

He laughed, “well, do it before you get shot, would ya? Don’t stick me with the responsibility of explaining things at your hospital bed.”

Rolling her eyes she crossed her ankles and bounced on the seat as they passed the gates into the airport. The private plane was a nice touch, and as James snored from the opposite seat, Isabelle stared out the small round window into the inky blackness of night. Her eyes didn’t see the cloudless sky reflecting the moon and stars across the choppy ocean waters. Instead, she was journeying through a treasure-trove of memories, and the mind reel was running in no particular order keeping her awake.

_ The breath left her lungs as her back hit the ice, and she felt a heavy weight over her legs, the stars beginning to clear from her vision. This wasn’t what she’d expected when she and Jack had been challenged at the rink, but sometimes things don’t go the way you plan. Her father had been teaching her since she could walk how to skate, same with her brother, and when the other group of kids there slammed Jack into the wall with a rough cross-check, her custom stick somehow ended up crumpling one to their knees with a swift hit to the stomach. _

_ Jack wasn’t exactly small, even though he was only twelve. He was quite tall for his age, the tallest in his grade, and he was starting to bulk up as he explored different sports and activities. The siblings were around the same height despite the fact that she was five years older, and she was often referred to as the younger sister when they were together. _

_ “You know why girls shouldn’t play hockey, Lizard? They’re too fragile,” the boy above her spat, a cracked and broken front tooth and a gauged scar across the bridge of his nose evidence of his rough demeanor. His meaty first raised over his head. _

_ Clenching and waiting for the hit to come, the grunting cry that left his lips instead made her eyes fly back open. Jack was three punches in on the kid’s now bloody face before she had the wherewithal to get up and pull him away. As she yanked him back, one of the other teens had decided to defend their friend's honor, and she was suddenly squished between the slightly taller, bulkier boy and her brother, the trio tumbling down to the ice. _

_ Hands were tossed, knees were thrust, and only when some of the adults had seen the squabble become a brawl were they separated, held by what amounted to the scruff of their necks. Noses and lips were bleeding on a few of them and the crimson plops showed at grotesque attention against the white-blue ice. _

_ The groups were separated, their parents were called, and Isabelle cursed herself for reacting the way she had. She side-eyed her little brother over the puffiness of her left cheekbone. Jack sat leaned forward with his head between his legs as the bloody nose slowed to a trickle, soaking to the wad of paper towels he’d set between his knees on the floor. His lower lip was swollen with a blunt crease that held one, hardening, fat drop of blood. He looked over at her with a twinkle in his light brown eyes, the mussy blonde hair going every-which-way at the top of his head. With a crooked grin, he pulled the ice pack from his knuckles and pressed it with his flat palm against her face. _

_ “Mom’s gonna kill us,” she grumbled. _

_ His response was to shrug and set a hand to her back in a harsh pat. “Yeah, but...Dad’ll be proud.” _

A dimpled smile curled her lips as she thought of her brother, teeth lightly nibbling the plastic rim of the cup of white wine that she was hoping would knock her out for the remainder of the flight. As the years passed he’d grown taller and broader, no one really knowing where that came from, and the joke of his adoption was frequently tossed around. It would be less of a joke if he wasn’t a mirror image of Isabelle with opposite parental traits. 

He was now seventeen and nearing six foot two, just taller than Michael, and his shoulders were widening as he got into weight lifting. She assumed that the next time she saw him he’d look like the Hulk.

Sighing and noting that the wine wasn’t working, she wondered how she would be able to do a full day with her parents on zero sleep after the action from earlier. Not that she’d have a choice, of course. The flight would get in around nine in the morning, and by the time she got home, showered, and tossed on some clothes, she’d have to head to the house with no time for a nap.

Landing, saying her goodbyes, and zooming home, she all but ran up the stairs. Flying into the apartment and kicking the shoes off at the door, Isabelle made a pit stop in the kitchen to craft a lame sandwich. Pulling the green spots off the slices of both cheese and bread, she slapped it together with some mustard and undressed as she walked the short hallway toward the single bedroom.

Taking a hot shower, the cuts and scrapes stinging in the water, she looked down at the scar on her leg from her first mission. The small knife had sliced into the muscle as she failed to trick her target and gain access to the intelligence.

Pushing aside the nagging worry at falling flat on her face with this career, she stepped over the bathtub edge and closed the shower curtain behind her. Wrapping a towel around her waist, she journeyed to the mirror to drag a brush through the wet, brown hair hanging in dripping strands pulled over her shoulder. 

Wiping at the foggy mirror, she caught sight of the dark circles beneath her eyes accentuating her lack of sleep, and a bruise was beginning to form on her jaw from where she’d taken a punch in Tokyo. Putting on concealer to cover up anything that would give it all away, she left the hair down long to dry and wandered into the attached bedroom.

Fatigue pulled at her shoulders but she shook it off. Donning a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, finishing it off with a zip-up hoodie, she grabbed her purse off the counter and made her way to the car, hitting a small coffee shop on the way.

**...**

“Hey, I’m here! Sorry I’m late, I needed some coffee. Hotel beds  _ suck _ and I didn’t sleep at all last night.” She walked toward the kitchen, stumbling over the hockey equipment in the foyer.

Sydney caught the drink as the girl’s grip loosened, Isabelle looking back with a grouse at the tripping hazard. “Damn it, Jack,” she grumbled, her mother frowning as she looked past the green eyes giving her child a once-over from her neck to the top of her head.

“What?” Looking over her shoulder and expecting to see her brother towering over her with a scary face, Isabelle turned back, confused.

With a knowing tilt of her lips, Sydney asked her daughter to follow. Leading them past the living room, office, her brother’s gigantic room, the guest room, her old bedroom, they moved into the master that her parents shared and stopped in the bathroom.

“What are we doing? Where is everyone?”

“The boys are loading things up in the garage. Listen,” Sydney ordered, pointing at her side with a motherly look that demanded obedience. 

Twenty-two or not, Isabelle did what she was told. 

As she spoke, a lumpy makeup bag landed on the edge of the counter, the deep dark marble a stark contrast to the pristine porcelain of the right-side sink. “Hiding the truth makes everything harder than it needs to be.” 

The daughter frowned behind a sip of coffee, the biting heat of the liquid long gone inside the shabby foam cup. “Hiding? You’re a bloodhound, I’ve never been able to hide anything from you. The paper is almost done, I swear!”

Grabbing Isabelle’s chin with gentle fingers, Sydney tilted her to look away with one hand as the other dipped into the concealer to dab over the tender bruised spot with a knowing touch. Trying but failing, the girl couldn’t contain the wince.

“I know how hard it is; the long flights, the sneaking, the running, the fighting,” with the pause, reaching down for more makeup, she spotted her daughter’s panicked green eyes as they widened and looked about desperately for escape. “You’re making it  _ so _ much harder than it has to be, Izzy.”

“Mom...I-” she started, but immediately fell silent. She expected a look of disappointment, but the warm brown eyes shone with understanding, love, and pride. “I just...I didn’t want-”

Sydney’s laugh cut her off, “I get it. Your dad and I weren’t exactly...open to the idea of you following in our footsteps. Not all of those steps were great. It doesn’t stop me from worrying, but I get it. Do me a favor though-” the crash of someone tripping over the sports bags and sticks in the foyer echoed back to where they were, Jack’s swear followed by Michael’s fatherly discipline.

“What’s the favor?” Isabelle squeaked as Sydney finished and put the makeup away.

“Tell your father first.” Pressing a kiss to her forehead, Sydney left her stunned daughter in the bathroom.

“Mom,” she called, catching her before she’d left the bedroom. “How long have you known?”

A bright dimpled smile was her answer, “you were doing heists at four, honey. I’m pretty sure that every warning I gave you became an open invitation.” Pointing, her face turning serious, “Dad first. We have a bet.”

Isabelle made a guttural noise in the back of her throat. “Ugh, dad knows too?”

“Oh yeah.”

“Am...am I terrible at this?” She couldn’t help the despair from seeping into her voice.

Jack’s voice cracked down the hallway, the low end squeaking for a moment to high, “we’re gonna be late, let’s go!”

The sister fired back, “hold your horses, Squeaky, adults are talking.”

Sydney moved back into the room with a roll of her eyes. “Isabelle, you’re going to be amazing. That’s not even a question.”

“Because I’m  _ your  _ kid?”

The mother heard the tone of voice, the frustration compounded visually by the nod that was her answer. “You have all the best parts of your dad and me in there, so yeah. You were kind of...born to be a spy. Believe me when I say I know how that feels. That doesn’t mean you aren’t going to forge your own path. Please...don’t do what I did - you know how  _ that  _ turned out.”

Their voices were low, the conversation not carrying past the doorway of the room. “I just...I feel like I’m never gonna get out of your shadow. Everyone at that office is _‘Sydney Bristow_ ’ this and _‘your mom’_ that.” It felt good to get out her biggest stumbling block, but she also hated that she sounded like a whiny baby.

Sydney lost some of her joviality once realizing that Isabelle was feeling what she’d felt every time someone said ‘ _ I knew your father _ ’ when she’d started at the agency - the  _ real _ agency. “I did two, maybe two-and-a-half years of good work for that office, and that’s all. Don’t let anyone tell you it was more than that.”

Isabelle huffed and flopped down on the edge of the soft padded bed, her eyes in her lap as her fingers picked at the label stuck to the cup. “You brought down a world-wide crime syndicate in those two and a half years, Mom. You’re like...a god to them. They expect me to be the new you.”

“No,” she countered, the green eyes looking up with a grumpy frown. Sydney lifted the hem of her shirt on the right side, the puckered scar faded from time but still very visible breaking the daughter’s gaze with a winced. “That office puts me on a pedestal because I died, honey. Please take a different path. I desperately want you to be your own agent, but it’s going to take time for you to figure it all out. You can’t be in a shadow that’s not there.” Lowering the shirt, Sydney slid her hands into her pockets and hoped her words had buried into her daughter’s fragile self-consciousness.

Isabelle saw a silhouette in the hallway behind her mother, the steps on the hardwood tentative, and she immediately knew it was her father.

“I mean, he just didn’t call, you know? I thought we had a great time but...maybe not.” 

Sydney was confused, but a tap on the door made both turn to see Vaughn with concern in his eyes. Realizing that Isabelle was far better at this than she’d credited, the mother held back a chuckle and regarded her husband with a soft smile.

“Everything okay?”

Jumping on the train Isabelle had sent down the tracks, “boys,” Sydney said quickly. Heaving a sigh, one that almost sounded like relief, he nodded.

“Jack and I can meet you there,” he said and gave his daughter a wink.

“No...it’s okay, Dad, we’ll go together.” Rising, she felt as if half a weight had lifted from her shoulders and her steps were lighter. “I’ll just...introduce him to grandpa,” she chuckled and made her way down the hallway.

Michael looked to his wife and then back to her near-twin as Isabelle pulled her younger, much taller, brother into a hug. “Did I just lose the bet?”

Sydney pressed a kiss to his cheek as she followed the hallway toward the living room. Tossing a chuckle over her shoulder:

“Not yet.” 

**…**

Late fall or not, it was still warm outside. That, however, never stopped the family from lighting up the fireplace and enjoying the crackle as they relaxed in the living room during many an evening. The immediate area, including the couches surrounding the large television, was bathed in the warm, orange, flickering glow of the flames dancing in the hearth.

A foreign film played on the screen, the French language lilting through the speakers. A soft snore from her right pulled Sydney’s attention as Jack’s head lay flopped against the soft back cushion of the couch, his mouth hanging open slightly as the lucent white gleam of the laptop primarily highlighted his chin and neck.

Against the armrest, her legs over Jack’s lap serving as a tray table for the computer, Isabelle was just as asleep. Pulling her arm from the blanket across her lap, Sydney checked her wrist to see that it was just after nine, and she chuckled before leaning her cheek back against Vaughn’s shoulder.

“They sleeping?”

“Yeah. Most parents spend time worrying about where their kids are on a Friday night. Ours are asleep before ten.”

They shared a laugh knowing secretly why Isabelle was exhausted, and Jack had played a full game of hockey a few hours earlier, so it all made sense. Still, Sydney felt a certain amount of pride at how their two were turning out.

“I kind of wish we’d had the rebellious phase that mom kept threatening us with. I’m not sure I like skipping mandatory parenting steps.” Michael said quietly.

She laughed through her nose and curled deeper into his side. Lifting his arm and wrapping it around her back, she sighed. “I know I say this all the time, but this is nice.”

His response was a nod and a tilt of his head to rest his cheek against the top of her head. As the movie ended and the snacks and drinks were put away, the pair stood looking down at the kids sleeping soundly on the warm couch. Sydney lifted the laptop, closed the lid, and carried it to the kitchen counter to plug it in for the night.

Taken back to when the children would fall asleep after dinner, Sydney bundling one while Michael took the other, nights when they would tuck them in together were rare but wonderful. Vaughn stepped forward first, his arms sliding beneath the crook of Isabelle’s knees and the small gap left by her back sloped against the arm of the couch. Once he had a grip, he lifted her with a small grunt.

“Did you just remember that you’re almost fifty-five years old?”

Vaughn sent her a humor-filled glare, “you get to carry the youngest,” he ordered with a nod of his head toward Jack, their giant teenager, and carried their daughter to the guest bedroom. 

Sydney must have anticipated that Isabelle would be staying with them that evening, and a freshly cleaned and folded comforter was waiting on the corner of the bed atop soft, deep maroon sheets. Settling her on the pillow, the change in location made her cling to his shoulders for a second as her eyes cracked and let in a bit of light.

“Shhh, it’s okay, Izzy. Get some sleep,” Michael reassured, his hands unfolding the blanket and tossing it over his daughter.

“Daddy?” Her curious voice, soft with sleep, pulled him back as he tucked the bedspread around her legs as he did when she was a little girl.

“Yes, Princess Bean?” He didn’t bother to suppress the chortle at her grumbled response to the childhood nickname. Instead, she pulled her arms out from beneath the coverlet. 

“I...can I tell you a secret?”

Vaughn’s stomach leaped into his throat at the thought that this was it: this was when he would win the bet. Trying to keep calm and quiet, he nodded and sat at the edge of the bed.

“I’m a spy,” she blurted in a light whisper.

Michael tried not to laugh at her admission and the fact that her fingers were twisting together above the blanket as her eyes avoided his matching green stare.

“I know,” was his gentle response. Reaching out, he pulled her hand between his and squeezed. “I know that you’re expecting me to rant and rave and demand that you be careful,” he paused.

When his words were stuck as he tried to sort through everything he wanted to say, his daughter frowned and angled her head. “Are you...not?”

“Oh no, I’m absolutely demanding that you be careful. Super careful; insanely careful.”

Peeking past his back toward the empty door and hallway, she could hear her mother softly speaking to her brother from the living room. “I jumped out of a forty-seven story building and parachuted to the street in Tokyo yesterday,” she admitted, the dimple on her right cheek appeared with the tilted smirk he could make out in the darkness, the only light coming from the small desk lamp in the corner.

Heaving a sigh and dropping his head low, Isabelle giggled quietly at his fake despair. “Look, I know you’re going to be just like her, but don’t forget that you’re fifty-percent Vaughn. Let that out of the box every now and then and do stuff by the book, okay?”

She nodded, “I promise. Thanks, Dad.”

Patting her hand and standing up, he set it over her stomach on the comforter. “Sleep tight, sweetheart.”

“Love you,” she said at his back as he made his way to the hallway after flipping the lamp off on his way. 

The click of the door in the jamb was interrupted as he opened it just enough for him to stick his head back inside. “Hey...you,” he paused, “you told me first, right?”

Stopped mid-twist as she was rotating beneath the blanket, she let out a light-hearted laugh.

“Yeah.”

“Yeah?”

“For sure,” she said, turning her back to the door.

“You’re not...just saying that to make me feel better, right?”

A heavy sigh, “of - of course not. Why would I?”

A moment of silence pervaded, Isabelle assuming he’d slipped out to let her fall back to sleep. Her eyelids were heavy and the softness of the pillow and bed called to her as she settled into the fluff with a comfortable exhale.

“You told your mom first, didn’t you?”

She had already turned away from him, her cheek resting on her hand tucked between her head and the pillow.

“No?” Clearly a lie, the statement was followed by a sigh and another whisper. “She told me I should tell you first.” She heard his grumpy exhale. “Technically I did.”

**…**

“You lied earlier,” he said softly into her hair, Sydney’s head resting on his shoulder as the lamp across the room cast a soft glow on the far wall.

Her reaction was a half-hearted and nearly asleep chuckle, her shoulder bouncing against his chest as she lay tucked into his side. “That’s a bold statement. Do you have any evidence?”

The patented and crooked Vaughn grin hit his face. “It’s mostly he-said, she-said,” he admitted.

“That won’t hold up in court,” Sydney said sarcastically before pulling her arm up to prop her head on her hand and regard him with curious brown eyes.

“Isabelle  _ did _ tell you earlier today.”

He frowned when she shook her head. “She showed up with a bruise, so I really only had two choices. Let it alone and have you and Jack ready to kill whomever she’s dating or give her enough makeup for it to be invisible. I...I gave it away that I knew where it had come from,” she admitted.

“Cheater,” he grumbled, reaching up to sweep a wisp of hair away from her forehead. 

Cupping her cheek and brushing the pad of his thumb over her cheekbone, she leaned into his touch as he pulled her to meet his lips. Sydney’s free hand dove into the salt and pepper silvery hair at his temples as his tongue flicked hers before tipping back.

“Either way I lost the bet.” Her voice was deliciously raspy, and in the low light, Michael could see the strands of purple tangling with brown in her eyes.

The beauty of night was on full display behind the curtainless panes of glass that warded away the salty sea air. The low-setting moon hung in the sky as if a heavy ornament at the end of a thin branch, and the rippled surface of the ocean rocked back and forth against the shoreline to create an imperfect replica of the lesser light above. Scattered was a treasure-trove of shells within the white sand that darkened at the surf beneath the long shadows of the oblong cliff at the end of the sandy stretch. The palms that grew at the top were translated as dark stripes below, reminiscent of a jail door, but one that trapped you in paradise.

Picturesque and serene, it was wholly ignored by the only occupants present to witness the glory, each focused wholly on the other. Fingers skimmed skin flecked with imperfections, each reminding the pair of the journey and caressed with reverence and forgiveness. Some happier than others, a thumb brushed over the faint scar beneath her navel, and both smiled at the knowledge of the happiness brought by that pain.

Beyond the night, beyond the healing, and beyond the reach of the past, they were reminded of the one truth that was the foundation of every moment of every day:  **love wins** .

**…**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A huge thanks to my readers, commenters, and kudos...ers, your words really kept me going through the almost two years it took to get this whole thing out.
> 
> I also aim to finish up my other WIPs, so keep your eyes open for those now that this one has wrapped up, and expect to see a smutty chapter or two (or ten) for You Wanna Be Rough when I get stuck or need to blow off some steam.
> 
> If you ever want to toss me an idea for a one-shot, I’ll absolutely entertain them! PM me here or shoot me a DM on Discord: Sowen#4747
> 
> Until next time, happy reading!


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